Body Went Missing After Demolition of Cemetery Delivered to Mother in Plastic Box

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On December 19, 2017, authorities demolished a cemetery in the eastern province of Bitlis and removed 282 bodies without informing their families.

Burhan Altıntaş was one of them. Deserted from compulsory military service and joined the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) during the height of conflict in the region in the early 1990s, he was killed in a clash in 1994.

His family was only able to find out in 2014 that he was buried at Garzan Cemetery in Yukarı Bölek (Oleka Jor in Kurdish) village in Bitlis.

After the demolition of the cemetery, Altıntaş's body was lost again, along with 282 others. The bodies were brought to İstanbul Council of Forensic Medicine and then buried in concrete sidewalks in Kilyos on the city's Black Sea shore.

So far, 21 bodies have been delivered to families after DNA examinations.

The Libertarian Lawyers' Association (ÖHD) has filed a criminal complaint on the grounds that the bodies were not properly buried.

"My heart almost stopped"

Sabiha Altıntaş, the mother of Burhan Altıntaş, told Mezopotamya Agency that she saw her son's bones in a plastic storage box filled with water.

"When I saw the box with my son's bones, my heart almost stopped. I told myself, 'What kind of Muslims are these?' I said, 'Someone who does this to a human's body can't be a Muslim.'

"When they gave the container box to me, I couldn't believe it was my son at first, I wanted to open it and look inside but those with me didn't allow me to do that.

"Then I insisted and opened it, looked at his bones for a very short moment. For years, I yearned for my son, I lived with the dream that my son would come back and hug me one day. But I hugged the bones that were given to me in a plastic box."

What happened?

Burhan Altıntaş was born in 1971 in the Söğütlü (Peyndas in Kurdish) village in Tatvan, Bitlis. After finishing primary school, he began helping out his family in agriculture and husbandry work.

When he was doing compulsory military service in 1992 in Kartal, İstanbul, he took a leave and went to his village. Staying there for about 15 days, he said goodbye to his family and told them that he would finish his military service in İstanbul. A week later, the army informed the family that he didn't come back.

The family later learned that their son joined the PKK. Burhan Altıntaş was killed in a clash between the army and the PKK in 1994.

Only in 2014, the family found out that Burhan was buried in Yukarıölek in the central district of Bitlis. (AS/VK)