A mukhtar, or village headman, who was kidnapped by the PKK last Saturday, was found dead yesterday in the southeastern city of Hakkari.

Nurettin Altun, who was the headman of Kadıköy, a village in the town of Yüksekova in Hakkari, was reported missing on Aug. 12 by his brother.

A note that the PKK sent to the headman demanding a meeting while ensuring that they would do no harm to him was found.

After he left the village to meet with the PKK, Altun was missing until yesterday morning when he was found shot in the head in the Yüksekova countryside.

The PKK published a statement on their website on Wednesday that said they had killed the headman.

This is not the first time that the terrorist organization has targeted civilians, either kidnapping or killing them.

The most recent incident took place last week, when Eren Bülbül, 15, died from gunshot wounds sustained while he was helping gendarmes track PKK members nearby his house in Maçka, a town near the Black Sea city of Trabzon.

A villager, Sami Çiftçi, was also kidnapped from his home in Hakkari last month. PKK terrorists took him far away from his home and shot him dead.

A shepherd, Tayyip Fidan, who was the father of two village headman, was also kidnapped by PKK members while taking his animals out to pasture, was shot and left in a remote part of the city.

The PKK also killed two teachers in June – Aybüke Yalçın in Batman province and Necmettin Yılmaz in Tunceli province, in addition to two district-level politicians from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) earlier in July as part of its campaign of assassinations targeting Kurdish political figures who refuse to adhere to its policies in the region.