The silence rising from the wells: The lost children of Dargeçit

That year, painful news was arriving one after another from different parts of my country, and newspaper headlines were reporting the flowing blood.

 I am talking about the year 1995. 

Let us now take a journey back to that year and to Mardin. 

That year, following the news that two teachers and the son of a village guard had been killed by the PKK in Dargeçit, Mardin, seven people were taken into custody during an operation conducted on October 29, 1995.

Among those detained were 12-year-old Davut Altınkaynak, 13-year-old Seyhan Doğan, and his 11-year-old brother Hazni Doğan.  Hazni Doğan would later describe that day as follows: "When they took us into custody, the soldiers beat me and put me in an armored vehicle; my older brother said, 'He is just a small child, don't hit him.' The soldier who was beating me took off his boot and started hitting my 13-year-old brother's cheeks with it. Dry tears were coming from his eyes, but he did not cry. After the atrocity they made us experience, I could never cry again..."

Hazni Doğan was released a week after being taken into custody, but his body bore signs of abuse. Upon this, his mother, Asya Doğan, rushed to the prosecutor's office. She filed a complaint, stating that her son had been tortured. She also had no news of her other son, Seyhan, and wanted to learn his fate. When the mother received no response to her petition, she stated that her son had disappeared in custody. Consequently, the mother was also taken into custody due to the words she had expressed.  

Hazni summarized his mother's end with these words: "They kept my mother in that cold detention cell for 30 days. Her lungs were damaged there, and this was what caused her to die at the age of 58."

So, where was Seyhan Doğan? 

The answer to this question would leak out after years of darkness. Four months later, following a tip-off by phone, the body of Süleyman Seyhan was found at the bottom of a well, with his hands tied behind his back and his head severed from his body. Allegedly, the person who made the tip-off was Specialist Sergeant Bilal Batırır, who had succumbed to his conscience. However, Batırır also paid a heavy price for this "information"; according to claims, he was burned to death in a boiler.

It was as if the hours were pointing to crime, atrocity, shame, and pain.

In 2009, the files were reopened. Because it was no longer stones, but human bones that were emerging from under the ground. In the excavations between 2012 and 2015, the atrocity was revealed in all its nakedness. The bones of Seyhan Doğan and his cousin Mehmet Emin Aslan were found in a vineyard house, while the bones of Abdurrahman Olcay and Abdurrahman Coşkun were found at the bottom of a well. The remains of 12-year-old Davut Altınkaynak were lying side by side with the bones of 16-year-old Nedim Akyön in the ruins by the Tigris River.

Hazni Doğan said, "We buried my mother on one side of Seyhan and my father on the other." "This event took away not only my brother but also my childhood and my entire life."

Now it is the judiciary's turn. 

Now, it was time for accountability.

If not now, when would justice speak?

The indictment regarding this was prepared by the Midyat Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on December 24, 2014. A lawsuit was filed against many individuals, primarily the Mardin Gendarmerie Commando Battalion Commander of the time, for "premeditated murder." Citing security concerns, the case was first transferred to Adıyaman and then to the Ankara 5th High Criminal Court.  However, the court in Ankara did not accept the trial. Upon this, the Court of Cassation decided that the case should be heard in Adıyaman again. 

But the expected justice never arrived.

The families' lawyer, Erdal Kuzu, was shouting from the courtroom podium: 

"We found the bodies with our own means. You are discriminating among the victims. Nowhere in the world can those who murder a 12-year-old child be left unpunished!"

The result?

The trial lasts for years, but not an inch of progress is made in finding the killers. According to the lawyers for the victim families, there is plenty of evidence, but the prosecution does not share the same view. Ultimately, when the calendar pages showed 2022, all defendants were acquitted despite the "intentional murder" charges. The subsequent appeal was also unsuccessful. In 2025, the statute of limitations also expired. Time, too, has lost its power of judgment.

So, has the Dargeçit file been closed now?

No!

Today; the mouths of those wells may have been sealed with concrete, the lights of the courtrooms may have been turned off, and the files may have taken their place on dusty shelves. However, the power of time to make people forget is always defeated in the face of the light of truth.

When the law steps aside by saying "statute of limitations," only that massive and cold void remains. In that void, neither the seal of acquittal decisions nor the cold language of official documents echoes. 

Perhaps this was our greatest mistake: expecting justice only from the podiums. Yet, justice had manifested the moment those bones were found—in a ruin by the Tigris, in the courtyard of a vineyard house, or at the bottom of a dark well. The earth gave its own verdict with every bone it refused to hide, breaking the silence by vomiting the truth.

Now, when the wind blows in Dargeçit, it is not just dust that rises; untold stories, unfinished childhoods, and the roar of that morning that never came are heard. The killers may be walking among us, and life may be flowing on. But that silent scream will continue to echo in the deepest corner of the conscience. Crimes buried under the earth do not die; they only wait for the right time.

Because history records not the acquittal of the criminals, but the sighs of the children. No matter how deep that well may be, the light of truth will one day surely put an end to the darkness. 

Because that light will ask this of us, of all of us: Why does a child return home as nothing more than a handful of bones?