It all started on April 23, the day Turkey marked its 91st National Sovereignty and Children’s Day. While in the western side of the country children were in a festive mood, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) kidnapped 25 students between the ages of 14 and 16 on the east side of the country, in the Lice district of Diyarbakir.

Sinan Bockum, 15, was one of those kidnapped. His family did a most unexpected thing when they got the news about what happened to their son. Although the PKK has kidnapped more than 330 minors in the last six months, the Bockum family was the first in the region who put up a tent near their home to start a sit-in protest, challenging the PKK and demanding that it return their son. Sinan was returned to the family on May 4. Al-Monitor reported this incident from the beginning in depth. 

None of the other families whose sons and daughters were kidnapped with Sinan on that day, however, joined the Bockum family during their sit-in at first. On May 19, that story changed. Ahmet Gunduz and Selami Eren started their sit-in protest in front of the Diyarbakir mayor’s office. Gumduz’s daughter Halime, 15, and Eren’s son Firat Aydin Eren, 15, were kidnapped on the day Sinan was taken by the PKK. “In the beginning we trusted to our own network and thought we could take back our kids safely from the PKK,” Selami Eren told Al-Monitor. “But it led to all dead ends, and we were left with no choice but to actively start this protest.” He said, “My son has very weak bones. He got me mad just two weeks before he was kidnapped, and I held his hand tight out of anger. I should not have done that. I broke two of his fingers just by that. If something happens to him on the mountains, he is too fragile. I lost all the sleep that I have thinking about all the potential wrongs that could happen.” 

Halime’s father, Ahmet, said, “We started as two families on May 19 [in] our protest before the Diyarbakir municipality. We are now about 21 families and the number keeps going up. All we want is our kids and peace. We don’t want the PKK to kidnap our kids. We don’t want to see any fighting between the security forces and the PKK. Both sides are our own people. Enough of that violence already. We just want a normal life.”