Village guard Mehmet Genç was killed by terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members in the southeastern province of Hakkari on Wednesday.
Genç was reportedly on his way to the Armutözü village in Yüksekova district when a group of PKK members kidnapped him. Terrorists then killed the village guard and left his body on 30 kilometers down the Hakkari-Van highway.
An operation was launched in order to catch the PKK members behind the attack, while Genç’s body was sent to the province of Van for autopsy.
A 20-year-old soldier, Soner Süylü, was also killed by a fellow soldier as a result of a friendly fire in the southeastern province of Şırnak on Wednesday. Soldier’s body was sent to his hometown in Samsun for burial.
The PKK is designated as a “terrorist organization” by the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), as well as Turkey. The 32-year-old conflict, which has claimed more than 40,000 lives, halted in March 2013 as part of the settlement process initiated between the PKK and the Turkish government. However, the PKK ended the ceasefire in the summer of 2015.