Each of the 37 security guards of the Bingol M-type Prison have been assigned to different cities on Thursday after 18 members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) escaped from the prison last week.

A day after their Sept. 25 escape from the prison, 17 of the 18 prisoners who escaped on through a tunnel they had dug were caught by security units. The 17 were caught in a rural area near the village of Orta Canak where they had been hiding and were sent to a court which ruled for their re-arrest. Security units are still searching for the remaining fugitive PKK member.

The PKK members were reportedly captured while they were en route to a PKK shelter in the Karacehennem forest, which is located 20 kilometers from the city of Bingol. According to news agency reports, nearly 2,000 gendarmes and police from special ops teams have participated in the operation to recapture the escapees.

Among the escapees were the PKK militants who carried out a bomb attack in front of a Diyarbakır “dershane,” or private teaching institution, on Jan. 3, 2008, causing the deaths of seven people. Six of the victims were students.

Cihan