Two Turkish citizens reported missing in Bahamas

ANKARA

Thirteen days after their arrival in the Bahamas via Cuba as tourists on Feb. 26, 2012, families of two citizens, registered in the southeastern Anatolian province of Mardin have been unable to reach their children, the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) announced April 26, with a friend of one of the tourists complaining of neglect by the Foreign Ministry and suggesting that this neglect stemmed from discrimination because the two missing persons were Kurds.

Veysi Oral and Hüseyin Özkan went missing 13 days after their arrival in the Bahamas, while their relatives and friends had lost track of them for the past 13 months, BDP announced in a written statement. BDP said it referred the issue to the Foreign Ministry, following a complaint made by the families, who could not obtain an outcome from their individual referral to the ministry. Foreign Ministry officials were not yet available for comment on the issue, when approached by Hürriyet Daily News on April 26.

A friend of the missing two, Nayif Gümüş explained how the two encountered someone who wanted to know if they were interested in selling their kidneys. Following the incident, the two went missing within days. He noted that they had made a referral to the Consulate of the Bahamas in Ankara and the Consulate of Turkey in Cuba, yet failed to obtain any result.

Gümüş accused the Foreign Ministry of ignoring the issue, as opposed to its initiatives for the kidnapped citizens in Afghanistan and Syria. He blamed the indifference of the ministry on the two missing citizens being Kurdish, and said, “Aren’t Kurds citizens of Turkey too? We are not demanding employment from the ministry. We only want the two missing citizens of the Republic of Turkey to be reunited with their families.”