In Êlih (Batman) during the 1990s, hundreds of people were killed in the streets by Hizbollah and JİTEM, while many others disappeared after being abducted. Despite applications made by families of the disappeared and the Human Rights Association (İHD) through both domestic and international legal channels to uncover the fate of the missing, many case files have remained unresolved.

 

One of those whose fate remains unknown is İsmail Ağaya, a distributor for the newspaper Özgür Ülke. On 29 May 1994, after leaving his home, Ağaya was allegedly forced into a vehicle by three armed men in civilian clothes and abducted. No news has been received from him for the past 32 years. Every week, his mother Müfide Ağaya joins the protest held in front of the Human Rights Monument on Gülistan Street under the slogan “Find the disappeared, prosecute the perpetrators,” demanding answers about her son’s fate.

 

‘I COULD NOT SLEEP THAT NIGHT’

 

Müfide Ağaya said that due to economic hardship, her son İsmail worked both as a shepherd and on construction sites to make a living. She recalled that one evening after returning from work, he left home again to visit his brother-in-law’s house and was never heard from again. She later learned that İsmail had never arrived there.

 

“I could not sleep all night. When he did not come home that evening, I went the next morning to the office of the newspaper where he worked and asked his colleagues about İsmail. I explained the situation and together we went to the police station to file a complaint. But the police there told me: ‘You send your son to the mountains and then come here claiming he is missing.’ I told them my son had not gone to the mountains,” she said.

 

SHE NEVER GAVE UP SEARCHING FOR İSMAİL

 

Müfide Ağaya said that after two women told her they had seen someone matching İsmail’s description being forced into a car by three armed men in civilian clothes, they searched throughout Êlih for him.

 

“That day, I realised my son would never return. I could not find any trace of him, but I never stopped searching. It has now been 32 years since my son disappeared. During these 32 years, there is no institution I have not applied to — the Human Rights Association, civil society organisations, courts, prosecutors’ offices. But unfortunately, I have received no result. Even so, I never gave up searching for my son,” she said.

 

‘I WANT MY SON’S BONES’

 

Müfide Ağaya said she has lived in constant expectation since her son’s disappearance. Referring to the Peace and Democratic Society Process initiated by Kurdish People’s Leader Abdullah Öcalan, she called for her son’s closed case file to be reopened and for his remains to be found, even if only his bones remain.

 

Mother said: “Before I die, let them show me my son. Even if my son is no longer alive, I want his bones.”

 

MA / Ozan Bayindir