On April 27, a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) sympathizers blocked the highway from Diyarbakir to Bingol — close to the intersection with the road to Lice — in protest of a gendarmerie post under construction at Abali, a nearby village. After stopping a commercial bus around noon, the PKK sympathizers realized while checking identities on the bus that there were two specialist-sergeants among the passengers. They were abducted in broad daylight.

When the news reached the gendarmerie post only 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) away, a detachment of soldiers was immediately rushed to the area. Fighting broke out, leaving nine soldiers wounded, none in critical condition. The highway remains partially closed to traffic.

On April 23, the PKK also kidnapped 25 students around the ages of 14-16. Erol Borcum, whose son Sinan, 15, was one of those kidnapped, told Al-Monitor that the PKK and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) members were lying when they said the students willingly went up to the mountains to join the militants.

“We gave permission to the school only to take our kids to the spring festival on the Tigris riverside — not far from this Abali gendarmerie construction site. Deviating from the purpose of this trip, they took our kids to this protest site. The PKK members lined them up and questioned them. And, for some reason, my son told them that his mom’s brother was also up in the mountains,” Borcum told Al-Monitor. “But I swear to you I don’t understand politics or want anything to do with the PKK. I am my son’s best friend. He is a naive and a quiet kid. He does not understand anything about the PKK or their violence. I want my son back.”