Per press statement released by Cumartesi İnsanları on 6th September 2014 and news article published by ANF on 4th December 2013, forty-year old Hüsnü Çankaya was living in the Selhe (Barıştepe) village of Mardin’s Midyat district. He was married and had nine children. His village was constantly raided by the military.

On 1st September 1995, Hüseyin and his wife went to a hospital in Batman for their newly born sick baby. While they were away, soldiers and village guards came to his house and took his fifteen-year-old son with them and said “we will not let you go unless your father comes here.”

The couple, meanwhile, stayed in Batman, in Hüsnü’s brother’s house which was raided by the police on 3rd September 1995 (according to their son, however, on 15th July 1995)

Hüsnü and his wife were detained along with their baby and taken to the Midyat Gendarmerie station. After their statements were taken, Mrs Çankaya, the baby, and their fifteen-year-old son, who had been tortured, were let go. Hüsnü, however, was required to stay at the Midyat Gendarmerie.

Hüsnü’s father went to look for his son only to be told that Hüsnü had joined the PKK. Later some village guards located two dead bodies, one of which resembled Hüsnü. When the family went to retrieve the body, however, they could not find anything.

To this day, Hüsnü Çankaya has not been seen or heard from, nor have his remains been found.