Child suicide bombers of the PKK

Ümit Turhan, also known as Harun Çekdar, was born in Kayseri but was originally from Iğdır. He was the son of the Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) Iğdır province co-chair. In Ümit's PKK recorded credentials, there was a death date, but no birth date. Even though the PKK tried to disguise it, you can see in his picture that he was so young that his moustache might have never been shaved. He was just 16. On a PKK-affiliated web site, the attack he launched by blowing himself up is commended in the following way: "In this heroic strike that targeted the enemy's hills, commander of the assault unit, Harun Çekdar, sacrificed his life in a comradely way against the mentality that for long ages has been slaughtering our people. In the midst of the clashes, comrade Harun gave the necessary response to the enemy's inhumane assaults by reaching their hills and detonating the bombs attached to him."

About his son being a suicide bomber, Ümit's mother, who sympathizes with the HDP, has said that it was a sacrifice: "My son has sacrificed his life. He has not lost his life to the enemy's bullet. He was my only boy." HDP Deputy M. Emin Adıyaman also attended Ümit's funeral and praised him as a "martyr."

Most likely, they took Ümit to the mountains first and brainwashed him with all the atrocities committed by the state in the 1980s and 1990s. They told him how noble it would be to blow himself up against the enemy, which cannot otherwise be discouraged. According to the organization's data, they give him the rank of commander so he would feel significant. Ümit probably never asked why there are 80 deputies representing them in the enemy's Parliament or if sacrificing himself at that age is really the right response while there are 80 deputies sitting there. He blew himself up and took two Turkish soldiers' lives as well.

Last year, the PKK promised that it would send its underage militants back home, but the organization did not keep its promise. Families protested in front of the Diyarbakır municipality building for days against the PKK for taking their children away to its camps. Nobody heard them. HDP Co-Chair Selahattin Demirtaş has become so merciless as to claim that they are hired by the National Intelligence Organization (MİT). Gültan Kışanak expelled them from the municipality with water because they caused a disturbance. There was no place for the families who want their children back in the HDP's "Great Humanity" project.

Likewise, the People's Protection Units (YPG) has also promised that it would not take underage soldiers either in Turkey or from the international community. After an international nongovernmental organization that inspects armed organizations activities according to the Geneva Conventions visited the organization, and the YPG's chief commander's assistant Redur Halil made the following statement: "Although preliminary precautions are taken to prevent underage recruitment, we admit that the problem still persists. We are well aware of the international concern and are working toward a permanent solution by taking the Geneva Conventions quite seriously. We have decided to record all our underage soldiers, disarm and eventually discharge them. All of this will be put in action within one month. From now on, we will obey the pertinent items of the Geneva Conventions and not accept underage youngsters"

The dead YPG soldiers that were brought to Turkey have shown that the YPG did not keep this promise made last in June of last year. When we look at the YPG soldiers' corpses, the same picture is seen again. Predominantly 16- to 17-year-old male and female soldiers have died fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Since the PKK leadership in northern Iraq's Qandil Mountains keeps its experienced militants either in the mountains or Turkey's southeastern provinces, both the PKK and YPG do not hesitate to send teenage soldiers to their deaths. They neither kept their promises nor told the underage soldiers to hold back, that it is not their job to blow themselves up or to fight ISIS, which has heavy weaponry, just like the U.S. professional army.

If foreign media outlets want to do more than picturing the PKK's female militants on Marie Claire's cover, they can start by covering the lives of these children abused by the PKK.