Turkish main opposition: 241 children killed in 11 years under AKP rule

In the last 11 years, 241 children have been killed in Turkey, lawmakers from main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) have said, citing documentation by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (T?HV).

According to figures by other civil society organizations, the number of children killed during the same period is 477, CHP lawmaker R?za Türmen said at a joint press conference with fellow CHP lawmaker Sezgin Tanr?kulu, held on Jan. 22.

"There haven't been any changes in the AKP's policy of 'hunting children' during the time between when 12-year-old U?ur Kaymaz was killed in front of his house wearing his slippers and when 14-year-old Berkin Elvan was killed when he left home to buy bread during the Gezi incidents," Tanr?kulu said.

In Cizre, a town in the southeastern province of ??rnak, a number of children have been killed in the last few weeks, Tanr?kulu said, criticizing the fact that there has not been a single perpetrator taken to court for these killings.

"With the case of Kaymaz's death setting the precedent, all of the other child murder cases have either gone unpunished or they have been finalized with penalties like awards," he also said.

Ahmet Kaymaz and his 12-year-old son, U?ur, were shot dead by the police while walking along a street in the southeastern province of Mardin's K?z?ltepe district Nov. 21, 2004.

Elvan, 14, was shot in the head by a police tear gas canister and passed away in March 2014, after having been in a coma for nine months. Elvan was going out to buy bread for his mother on a Sunday morning when he was shot with the canister by the police.

Tanr?kulu distributed a list to journalists at the conference that has the unsolved murders of children committed from 2002, when...