Bone pieces unearthed in Southeast excavation

Agence France-Presse

The remains, unearthed near the small village of Karaçlı in the province of Diyarbakır, will be analyzed by forensic experts to determine if they belong to humans, the source said.

The dig began Thursday on the orders of the local prosecutor investigating allegations that several people went missing in the 1990s at the peak of an armed insurgency in southeastern Turkey were in fact victims of summary killings.

The allegations were made by a former member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who later became an informer for JİTEM, the intelligence and anti-terror unit of the Gendarmerie, in remarks published in January. The existence of JİTEM has never been officially acknowledged.

The informer, Abdulkadir Aygan, now based in Sweden, claimed to have witnessed the murders of people suspected of links with separatists and heard some people talk about having committed extrajudicial killings. He alleged that two people were buried near Karaçli, one in 1994 and one in 1996, after being executed by JİTEM. Recent excavations in the neighboring province of Şırnak led to the discovery of nearly 20 bone fragments and authorities have charged six people in connection with the discovery, among them a colonel who headed Gendermarie troops stationed there in 1993-1996. Some 44,000 people have been killed since the PKK took up arms in the Southeast.