Although most of these families belong to low-income group and are exposed to many pressure, they do not step back. Guzide Demir's mother describes the pressure on them as follows:
"They put pressure on my husband at work because I participated in the sit-in protest, they paid his salary 1,000 TL less. They told him whether to accept less salary or quit the job."
The role of the HDP in the protests, on the other hand, is crucial so that the reactions of the families increased in the face of the party's weak reaction towards them during their watch. Moreover, the HDP's reaction against Diyarbakir mothers was blaming them as being traitors.
HDP was chosen as the address of the protests since the party plays a key role as a way station for the children's being taken to the mountains as well as it provides financial support to keep their families under its influence.
Mothers of Diyarbakır are also angry at the HDP municipalities that they openly serve the PKK terrorist organization. For all these reasons, mothers of Diyarbakir continue their sit-in protest in front of the HDP and they will continue to hold HDP accountable until they meet their children.
While the mothers are on watch, the children's stories are worth to be told that we learn in the field research[4]. These stories will also help people understand better the mothers of Diyarbakır and see the true face of the PKK's child soldiers recruitment.
The first of three narratives to be told is about Rojhat Ciftci. Rojhat was kidnapped six years ago in Hakkari when he was fifteen. He contacted with his family twice and was caught by the PKK militants while trying to escape from the camp. Later, the PKK pulled Rojhat's nails off in order to prevent any further attempt of escape.
Rojhat's mother and brother searched for him in the PKK camps, including Kandil. During one of these visits, Rojhat's brother quarreled with the PKK militants as they neither showed nor gave Rojhat to his family. Shortly after Rojhat's family returned to their village, the militants raided the village at midnight and killed Rojhat's older brother in the barn of the house.
Hamza Adıyaman was only nine years old when he was kidnapped by the PKK. No one would believe that a nine year-old boy joined a terrorist organization willingly.
Hamza lived in the village of Kırıkdağ in Hakkari and was kidnapped in front of his school. When his family realized that their child was missing, they went to the school for searching him and saw a black car that they believe their son with tied hands was in.
Later, the PKK and HDP told the family that Hamza "died by falling into the Zap river" however Hamza's parents believed this was a lie.
They sought help from the HDP twice and got the answer that "the child is not here, he is not in the PKK as well." However, the family got a photograph of Hamza clad in PKK clothes and holding a gun in the PKK's child soldiers camp. Hamza's family did not lose their hope and visited the PKK camps 20 times to get Hamza back.
During one of these visits, Hamza's father saw his son in a car in Hakurk and called out to him but Hamza could not answer. The PKK immediately took the car from there. Hamza's father said that "there were eight other children in that vehicle."
The return of the children after having seen their mothers' call on the media has been a motivational factor for the families of others. The mothers of Diyarbakır strongly believe that one day all the children will be freed from the PKK.
*** This article has been penned by Abdullah Erboğa for Türkiye's state-run news agency...
