The Turkish gendarmerie (military police) in the northern Kurdish province of Şırnak discovered a body in the Hezil River in the district of Uludere on Saturday evening. The dead woman was found partially undressed and wedged between two rocks, the authorities said on Sunday. Her various injuries pointed to a homicide, which is why the body had to be autopsied.

In the meantime, it has emerged that the deceased is 18-year-old Firdevs Babat from the town of Şenoba. The teenager had been reported missing by her parents on Thursday after she left early in the morning to visit a friend but did not return. She was reportedly killed the same day.

A homicide squad has been investigating the cordoned-off site since Saturday. This also included the securing of evidence. Presumably, because the body had been lying there for so long, the cause of death could not be determined despite several hours of autopsy at the hospital in Uludere, so the body of the deceased was transferred to the hospital in Şenoba. The cause of death was not initially revealed. At the moment, further analyses are said to be underway.

On Sunday evening, a suspect was arrested. His name was given by the authorities as Ahmet Babat. He is said to come from the same extended family in Şenoba to which the victim Firdevs Babat also belonged, and to be her ex-boyfriend. In the first police interrogation, the man is said to have remained silent. He then confessed to the Uludere public prosecutor's office that he had killed the 18-year-old girl. A local court ordered him to be remanded in custody.

Babat Village Guard Association

The Babat family association, which belongs to the Goyan tribe, is almost entirely in the pay of the Turkish state as a clan of village guards. Since the 1990s at the latest, the Babats have been involved in the dirty war against the Kurdish guerrillas, "disappearing" numerous people as the death squad "Dagger Team" (Hançer Timi). Today they participate in the ecocide in Northern Kurdistan and in the invasion of Southern Kurdistan.