Kurdish families mourn PKK dead as Turkey releases lists

Kurdish families in Istanbul and southeast Turkey are holding remembrance gatherings for relatives who joined the Kurdistan Workers' Party, after Turkish authorities began publishing lists of dead fighters following a new reintegration law.

Parliament passed the law this month to reintegrate Kurdish fighters into civilian life. It follows a peace process initiated by Turkish authorities at the end of 2024.

Menal Konak, 31, said her brother Mahmut left to join the PKK in Syria in 2014 and died in 2020, but her family learned of his death only this week. She said she still does not know where his remains are.

In the Kucukcekmece area of Istanbul, families gathered in an apartment block being used as a place of remembrance because there is no grave. Vasile Uskas said her daughter also left to join the PKK in 2014 and the family had still hoped she might return.

At the same gathering on Saturday, Ilhami Kurt, vice-president of the NGO Mebya Der, said the group was honouring eight dead fighters and that families wanted at least to find their children's gravestones.

Four decades of fighting have left nearly 50,000 dead, according to the Turkish government.

Sebahat Tuncel, a former MP for the pro-Kurdish DEM party, said the new law was only a first step and dealt with disarmament, not the wider Kurdish question. She said much remained to be done.