Per court documents, the Bilir family moved from Şırnak to Cizre after Şırnak was ravaged during the Newroz of 1992. Ramazan Bilir’s brother İlhan (aged 19-20), who was staying at his brother’s house in Cizre, left home to see relatives living in Şırnak. When İlhan did not return to Cizre, Ramazan Bilir inquired of their relatives about him and learned that 2-3 unknown persons had come to the house and left with İlhan, purportedly with the intention of “letting him go in 3 days”. Ramazan Bilir, who moved back to Şırnak, continued to search for him for the next 3 years, until one day in 1995, when a man named Ali came to his house and said: “I know where your brother is. Let’s first go to Cizre and then, to Northern Iraq”. Ramazan Bilir left the house with this man and he, too, disappeared. With the help of their neighborhood’s mukhtar, Ramazan Bilir’s wife applied to the police station, the police headquarters and the prosecutor’s office. The police briefly questioned and released the man called Ali, who, according to the wife’s findings, was a member of JİTEM. Ali maintained that he did not know what had happened to her husband after the two men went to Cizre together.

İhsan and Ramazan were never heard from again, nor were their bodily remains ever found.