In southeastern Turkey, Kurdish families anticipate the return of their fighters

REPORT - A law governing the return to civilian life of members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was adopted by the Turkish Parliament at the beginning of August. In Diyarbakir, in the south-east of Turkey, residents wonder about the fate of their loved ones who have been engaged in the Kurdish guerrilla war for 40 years.

The photos on the wall are a little yellowed. Apart from this detail, Erdal Yasar's room is the same thirty-three years later. His clothes are neatly folded. A pen collects dust, not moved an inch. His mother, Hatice, is still plump and smiling, sitting in the same place as in 1993, when the young man left to join the Kurdish maquis. That day, he exchanged his studies for weapons, and his name for a coded surname: “Mazloum”. Behind dark glasses, Hatice no longer wants to hear about this militia alias. Her 64 years now force her to lean on the edge of the table. When her son returns, because he will return, for sure, to the small family apartment in Diyarbakir, in the south-east of Turkey, it will be Erdal that she will call him. “Then I’ll slap him, and then I’ll hug him,” she said.

The return of the “insurgents” is what the Kurds of Türkiye are facing after…