Family can't retrieve remains of guerrilla son

The remains of Serhat Kaya, who fell as a martyr as the result of a Turkish air strike in Hakkari, has not been delivered to his family for 16 months.

The remains of Serhat Kaya, one of the two HPG members who fell as martyrs following the Turkish air attack in Talê, in rural Hakkari, on 18 August 2019, have not been delivered to his family for 16 months. The Kaya family got no answer to their application to the prosecutor's office, and suspects that the corpses are actually in pieces.

Serhat Kaya's brother Kenan Kaya said that despite their application, no blood sample has been taken from them for DNA testing. Noting that the prosecutor's office wrote to the gendarmerie claiming that the body could not be reached because the area was "banned", Kaya pointed out that in fact there are two bases in the area where the bombing took place and that the area is close to the village of Talê. Kaya said that the villagers in the area found some limbs and buried them at the scene.

Kaya also called out to the people who had been sitting in front of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Amed Provincial Organization building saying: "I cannot take the body of my brother, who is 30 kilometers away. You have to see this reality.”

Expressing that they think that his brother's remains were destroyed in the air attack, Kaya said: "We want to recover his remains, even if it is just a part of it, a hand. Let us go and get it. But they do not allow it. This is an inhumane situation. We will recover my brother’s remains no matter how long it would take.”