Republican People’s Party (CHP) head Kemal Kilicdaroglu posed five questions to the Turkish leader during a CHP meeting in Parliament, including what the government had done to protect the victims since their abduction by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) five to six years ago.

According to Ahval Turkish officials on Sunday said PKK militants had executed 13 kidnapped Turks, including military and police personnel, in a cave in northern Iraq’s Gara region. The report arrived amid a military operation in the region targeting the PKK, which began on Feb. 10.

Twelve of the kidnapped Turks had been shot in the head and one in the shoulder, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said in a statement on Monday.

Turkish officials have identified the victims as soldiers and police officers kidnapped in separate incidents in 2015 and 2016.

“The martyrs of Gara are soldiers that have been held by the terror organization for five and a half years,” Kilicdaroglu said. “What was done (for them) over the past five to six years?”

Kilicdaroglu accused Erdogan of using the killings to silence dissenting voices in the country.

“In order to cover their faults,” the CHP leader said, “they began to accuse and divide. But these martyrs are those of 83 million.”

Turkey on Monday detained over 700 people, mostly members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), suspected of links to the PKK.

Kilicdaroglu also asked why the government never thought of reaching out to human rights organizations regarding the abductees, or why it didn’t work with former U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to help release those taken hostage by the PKK.

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