Boy killed by soldiers in operationFont Size: Larger|Smaller
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
A 16-year-old boy in Samsun was killed Tuesday evening by security forces after he was allegedly mistaken for a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in a rural area along the Samsun-Amasya provincial border.
Gökhan Çetintaş’s 18-year-old brother survived the incident and was taken to the police headquarters to testify. “We both attended a wedding in Paşapınar village. We wanted to return back home on foot since we could not find any vehicles. [We later learned that] the gendarmerie had set up an ambush in the area [to trap] the PKK. We had no idea. No one issued a warning for us to stop. Then they suddenly began firing. I shoved my brother over and had him lie on the ground. I, too, lay down. Then I fired one shot in the air. But the gendarmerie shot at us first,” said Habib Çetintaş.
A gun with a blank cartridge was found in the area after large numbers of troops began an operation at the scene in the wake of the incident. “Initial reports indicated a clash between PKK and security forces.








