59 years of longıng ends: Halil Öztürk found the grave of his martyr father

Duran Öztürk, who lived in Tokat, became a martyr in a tragic accident while performing his mandatory military service in Iğdır in 1965. Due to the circumstances of the time, Öztürk couldn't be brought back to his hometown and was laid to rest in an unattended cemetery.

His family in Tokat learned about his martyrdom 45 days later. After half a century had passed, Gökhan İpek, the owner of a marble workshop who was tracing the trail of the abandoned grave, discovered that it was a martyr's cemetery. Öztürk, who had a new grave made from marble to safeguard the martyr's memory, also adorned it with a Turkish flag.

On February 17, 2021, when SABAH newspaper reported this incident with the title "Marble worker takes responsibility for ownerless martyr's grave," Halil Öztürk, the son of the martyr living in Tokat, called İpek with a feeling that the grave belonged to his father. An examination conducted in military archives confirmed that the grave indeed belonged to Duran Öztürk.

In the 59th year since his father's passing, Halil Öztürk, the 60-year-old son of the martyr, visited his father's grave that he had never seen before. Öztürk, accompanied by Gökhan İpek, who took ownership of the grave, expressed, "When my father became a martyr, I was just one year old. I grew up without knowing what a father is. As I grew, his absence enveloped me. I wished he had at least a grave.

I knew he was buried in Iğdır, but we couldn't find him. The moment I read SABAH's news, something inside me broke. I said, 'This is my father.' I accessed the military records. It was my father in the cemetery. After 59 years, I am at my father's grave."