Turkey: 1 more family joins anti-PKK sit-in protest

By Ahmet Kaplan

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AA) - Families of children abducted or forcibly recruited by the PKK terror group continue their sit-in protest in southeastern Turkey on the 569th day.

Families of children abducted or forcibly recruited by the PKK terror group have been protesting for more than one and a half years in the Diyarbakir province, calling on their children to lay down arms and surrender to authorities.

The protest outside the offices of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which the government accuses of having links to the PKK, was started by three mothers on Sept. 3, 2019.

Nisbete Yuksel, a woman who came from the southeastern Batman to join the protest, said her son, Firat, had been kidnapped by the terrorist group seven years ago.

Yuksel said her son was kidnapped while they were residing in Istanbul, adding he went out one day and never came back.

"Enough is enough, I cannot bare this anymore. I want my child back," she said, calling on the HDP to bring her son back.

She also called on her son to surrender and said: "I did not bring you into this world so that you go to the mountains [...] Do you not pity us? Come wherever you are, your father is very ill."

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and the EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.

*Writing by Merve Aydogan in Ankara