İSTANBUL- Gülsüm Elvan, mother of Berkin Elvan who was killed by a gas cannister fired by the police, said she has been searching for her son for 5 years and added: "Children would not still be dying if those police officers were punished appropriately." And said she will do anything in her power to make those police officers stand trial and see them get punished.
The social events that started with the people reacting to the fact that the trees in Gezi Park were being cut in Taksim on May 27, 2013, escaladed witht he police interventions. While thousands of people were injured in the events that lasted for about two months, according to the data of the Turkish Medical Association (TTB), 12 people lost their lives and 31 people lost their eyes due to the gas canister fired by the police.
One of the citizens who lost their lives was 14 year old Berkin Elvan. Elvan who stepped out of their home to buy bread for breakfast on June 16, 2013 was shot in the head by a gas cannister fired bu the police and got heavily injured. Elvan who was taken to the intensive care unit in Okmeydanı Education and Research Hospital, fought for his life for 269 days and lost his life on March 11, 2014.
The case file about Elvan losing his life have not been finalized in the past 5 years. Mother Gülsüm Elval who attanded to all 7 hearings of the case in İstanbul 7th Criminal Court, said she will struggle to the end to see those police officers punished.
Elvan who stated that everything changed in her life since she lost her son, said she could never accept the fact that her son is gone. Elvan said: "If my son had lived, he would be 20 years old now.He is gone for 5 years now.His loss have pierced through me. My son did not dissappear. He was forced into dissappearance.He went to buy some bread one morning and then he was taken away from me. I see that I have scars that can not heal everytime I go out in the streets that he played, everytime I see his friends. People say time heals everything. My scar gets larger and larger day by day.I am incomplete. I am half a person. He was a baby, a child. He was a easygoing child who never fought with his friends."
Elvan who made a call to the mothers who lost their children said: "Please do not stay silent. Do whatever is necessary. They are your life, your blood and skin. Pain has no colour, no race..Pain is pain. We should reach out to every mother who loses their child. We ,mothers, have to unite. Not just the mothers of Gezi Protests.. All mothers whose child was murdered by the state, the police, or any civillian. Our children will live if we manage to unite."