The Saturday Mothers initiative has called on the Turkish government to clarify the fate of Recep Diker. The Kurdish man from the Kayadere village in Silvan district of Amed (Diyarbakır) was 29 years old when he was last seen alive in Amed on September 14, 1994. It was the time when death squads of the Turkish gendarmerie - responsible for "intelligence gathering and counterterrorism," or JITEM for short - and the radical Islamist Hezbullah ruled over life and death in the Kurdish regions and made thousands of people disappear.

"We just want a bone or the clothes Recep wore that day to put in a grave where we can mourn," Diker's son Mahsum Diker said at the 848th Saturday Mothers' Vigil held today. "Hope that he might still be alive is something we haven't had for a long time." Mahsum Diker was four when his father disappeared 27 years ago - on his way to the café run by his brother in Amed. Recep Diker had fled there because he could no longer stand the pressure from the state in Silvan. He and other residents had refused to join the village guard system. As a result, Kayadere was raided several times before it was finally wiped off the map. These raids were accompanied by the most serious human rights crimes against the people.