The killing of the soldiers caused deep sorrow and grief across the country but the greatest grief was felt in the soldiers’ family homes. “My son was killed by the bullets of the traitors. Those who planned this should be ashamed. I won’t cry and make those traitors happy,” said Müşerref Tosun, the mother of Mehmet Ali Tosun who was among Saturday’s dead. The country was shaken by the news from the Şemdinli district in the southeastern province of Hakkari on Saturday, where a total of 11 soldiers lost their lives in 24 hours in a heinous terrorist attack that killed nine soldiers early in morning, followed by a mine blast that killed two in the afternoon. Fourteen soldiers were also injured in the morning attack carried out by the PKK on an army border unit in Şemdinli. A separate terrorist assault on a military outpost in the eastern province of Elazığ late on Saturday killed one soldier and injured another, which raised the number of slain soldiers to twelve.
The bad news was given to the families by soldiers and government officials, who were accompanied by health officials. In the Uzunköprü district of Edirne, Hatice Yelken, the mother of Oğuz Yelken, collapsed when Uzunköprü District Governor Uğur Kolsuz told her and her husband that their son was dead. Soldier Sebahattin Derin’s mother, Melek Derin, was another mother devastated by the loss of her son. Derin’s house in the Milias district of Muğla was filled with mourning relatives yesterday. In the central Anatolian province of Konya, the mother, father and brothers of Süleyman Ballan broke down when they saw military officers, who had apparently come to convey bad news, at their door.
Elmas Kara, the mother of Ömer Kara, who died in Saturday’s mine explosion, said she had talked with her son on the phone on Friday evening. “My son told me that he felt he would be killed,” she said in tears.
The hardest Father’s Day for martyrs’ fathers
This year’s Father’s Day was a source of deep grief for the fathers of the soldiers who died on Saturday. The fathers who would have been waiting for a happy Father’s Day message from their sons on Sunday were mourning their brutal deaths yesterday. Soldier Mutlu Saydam’s father, Sıddık Saydam, said his son was running a market before he went to the military and there were only 57 days before his son completed his military service. “All the soldiers there are my children. My son did not even know what kind of a thing a gun is. He received 15 days training in Sivas and was sent to Hakkari. How can he be sent to the border without training? Who have we been fighting for 30 years? Why are we dying on our own land?” he asked.
“I had two sons, one was killed. May these attacks come to an end,” said a sorrowful Nurettin Köksal, the father of Hüseyin Köksal.
