Background
Dilek Kalkan was a young woman living in the Bismil district of Diyarbakır, reported missing by her family in May 2013. For years the family waited both for news of their daughter and for events to be properly recorded. The investigation at the time was closed on 22 October 2014 with a decision not to prosecute, because evidence against the suspects was considered insufficient.
The decision left the file quiet for a long time.
What happened
On 29 July 2014, water levels fell at the Pamukçayı area within Tatlıçayır neighbourhood in Bismil, exposing a human skull, bone fragments and clothing in the stream bed. A first examination at the Istanbul Forensic Medicine Institute found the remains belonged to a woman aged 17 to 23, but she could not be identified. A search order for the unidentified remains was entered on 13 February 2015.
The missing-person file and the bones file proceeded for years as two separate investigations.
Investigation and legal process
On 24 April 2026 the Unsolved Crimes Research Department, created within the Justice Ministry, scanned records of women of the relevant age who had gone missing in Diyarbakır and nearby provinces. The clothing described by the family resembled what had been found in the stream bed. A DNA sample from her mother matched the remains at 99.99 per cent, confirming they were Dilek Kalkan's. On 4 June 2026 a criminal judgeship of peace lifted the non-prosecution decision and the two files were merged.
A fresh look at mobile-phone tower data changed the direction of the case. On 11 September 2026 Diyarbakır JASAT teams carried out an operation against seven suspects; six were detained and a search continued for one who was not at his address. Some reports said two of those detained were later arrested, but this was not confirmed across all sources. Until a court rules, the accusations remain allegations.
Where it stands today
Identifying Dilek Kalkan through DNA twelve years later showed that remains left nameless for years belonged to a person her family had never stopped looking for. The case is a reminder of the value of comparing unidentified remains and missing-person reports in a single database. Dark Location presents this page in her memory and to draw attention to the voices of families of the missing.