Page 262 - America's Failure to Perceive the PKK

Orhan Miroğlu, an AK Party MP, wrote in his article of May 17,
2015, when "the Solution Process" was still on the agenda, "Writing
from the Mardin ‘Canton'," that 150 people, mostly children, were
taken to mountains in the past month in Kızıltepe and Dargeçit. Şan-
98
lıurfa Governor İzzettin Küçük announced on TV that 3,000 children
were abducted in the first six months of 2015 in the region. In Suruç
alone, 400 children were taken. Küçük expressed the gravity of the sit-

uation, saying, "We were informed that the PKK wants to take one kid
to the mountains from every house. Also many district officers
(muhktars) in Şanlıurfa were abducted to Kobane. We informed the
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authorities of this situation." Regrettably, these are only the known
cases. The families in the region continue to struggle with this prob-
lem, and many barely escape abduction of their children, while others

260 America's Failure to Perceive the PKK