Turkey: Mothers’ sit-in against YPG/PKK marks 100th day

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey A protest held by dozens of families in Turkey’s southeast against YPG/PKK terrorists marked its 100th day on Wednesday. The protest started in September in Diyarbakir province when a mother, Fevziye Cetinkaya, said her underage son had been forcibly recruited by YPG/PKK terrorists with the help of members of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), a party accused by the government of having links to the terrorist group. Since then, the number of protesting families has been growing, as they demand the return of their children, who, they say, were deceived or kidnapped by PKK terrorists. Aysegul Bicer, a grieving Kurdish mother, has been tirelessly protesting alongside dozens of other Kurdish mothers outside the provincial building of HDP against the recruitment of children by the terrorist group. Bicer’s son left home on Nov. 17, 2018, in the morning and she never heard from him again. On Nov. 19, 2018, they received a phone call informing them that the child was recruited by YPG terrorists and taken to the mountain. “Many of our youths are now lying in graves, half of them are in the mountains, half in prisons. We do not accept it,” she told Anadolu Agency. The family has no intention to give up on their child, both mother and father have a strong belief that sooner or later their son will return. “We will eventually be reunited as a whole family and live in peace as it used to be,” said Rauf Bicer, the father of the child.