Over 1,000 children present in PKK camps, says interior minister

ANKARA - Hürriyet Daily News

Minister Şahin says the PKK is trying to make up its losses with kids. AA photo

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is estimated to have over 1,000 children in its camps, Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin has said.

“The separatist terror organization aims to cover its loss of members by recruiting children,” Şahin told reporters in Ankara on Nov. 30. “I cannot give an exact number, but according to our estimations, over 1,000 children, who have no idea [of the PKK agenda], have been taken from the southeastern region.”
Şahin said intelligence reports indicated that the PKK was pressuring the 12,000 Turkish citizens who live in the U.N.-supervised Mahmur camps in northern Iraq to give up at least one of their children to join them. “That is a clear sign of the terror organization’s brutality,” he said.