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.
