Amputee SDF fighter lost life by Turkish drone in Syria’s Qamishli  

By Nalin Ali

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Aras Ibrahim, 26, from the city of Qamishli in northeast Syria, sips a few drops of medicine that enters his body as if he takes a poison because he started to feel lonely, lying on a bed that was gathering him with his deceased older brother, Aram. He keeps looking for his ghost to comfort his loneliness but nothing remains except for the echoes of conversations and laughter that sneak to the memory to prevent him from forgetting.

Whenever Aras turns around, he sees his late brother’s clothes hanging in the closet and his books on the roof. He imagines that Aram calls him to get up and help him to dress his suit, and points by his amputated arms and foot.

Ibrahim told North Press that he has worked in a bakery for pastries, and he had a brother who joined the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since 2011, with the aim of defending his region.

Ibrahim said he woke up on Aug. 3 without knowing how the day would be tragic. He practiced his life routinely. “I went to my work and returned at three PM, and rested for about four hours, until my brother returned home”, Ibrahim said.

While Aras displayed the pictures of his brother in front of the camera, there was a picture of a young man in the prime of life, smiling in most pictures. “That day, Aram came and told me that we should go out to have fun with our friends,” Ibrahim said, noting that the meetings of young people in the summer are mostly in the evening, “so I agreed.”

On Aug. 3, a Turkish drone fired three missiles at a car carrying Aram, Aras’ brother, and other friends just a few kilometers to the west of the city of Qamishli in northeast Syria. The drone strike killed four SDF fighters including Aram.

Sudden calamity

Ibrahim recalls that his brother took his civilian car. “We were six people in the car, and we headed to Ali Faro Road near the village of Haram Sheikho, which connects Amuda and Qamishli city,” he said. 

“Suddenly we felt a strong strike. The car turned over and caught fire. We could not understand what was happening. I saw my brother dead in front of me. In moments, we threw ourselves out of the car, or rather whoever was not killed by the first strike got out of the car”, he added.

“Then I felt two consecutive strikes in almost the same minute. I felt bleeding in my body, and then I no longer understood what was happening around me.”

Ibrahim recovered to see himself on a bed in the hospital. He later informed that he had undergone a surgery for four and half an hour. He did not comprehend anything that happened at that time except that the doctor told him that a drone targeted them, and he was hit by shrapnel in his leg and another one in his liver and came out towards the heart, so the latter was far only two centimeters from his heart, according to the 20-year-old man.

“My survival is a miracle. The bleeding was severe. This is what the doctors told me. No one survived except for me and a friend”, he added.

Ibrahim concluded his speech with tears. He tried to suppress them but in vain. “Aram was our support. He was the pillar we depend on. We were not afraid of anything because his presence was enough to feel secure. Although his both hands and a foot were amputated, his hope strengthened us. We did not carry weapons with us when we went out. We wanted to enjoy life like others, but Turkey refused to give us this right”, he said sadly.

Shaker Hassan, 27, from Qamishli, one of Aram’s close friends, puts his hand on the shoulder of Ibrahim and mourns him with words that may not be enough to express what he feels. “We trained and fought together, and we were also injured together, but he refused to take me with him to death, he went alone”, Hassan said.

Hassan recalls 2015, the campaign to liberate the town of Tel Tamr. “During the battles between the SDF and ISIS, he was hit by three bullets, one of them came in his hand and thus he lost his palm, and I was hit by nine bullets but I did not lose any part of my body”, he continued his speech.

“A friend of ours got stuck. However, Aram refused to leave him behind us, so we went to help him with a number of our comrades. While we were rescuing him, 18 people were injured. We were among them and despite that, Aram was survived”, Hassan explained how they were injured.  

“During Raqqa campaign and the fight against ISIS, a mine exploded. As a result, Aram lost his other hand and his foot. At that time, we were shocked by what happened.”

“We tried to console him. We thought that we would get him out of trouble like this but he did not make us frustrated. Rather, he was the one who raised morale”, he said.

“As a result, Aram traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan, and there they put a prosthetic hand for him, so that he could hold anything with it without anyone’s help”, according to what his friend mentioned.

“We went through a lot of difficulties. Aram kept saying ‘we fight so that the blood that was shed for the homeland should not be in vain, and we started our goal, thus we will complete it until the end’, so he was serious.”

“He had neither hands nor a foot. Why did Turkey target him by a drone?” Hassan wonders.

In a corner of one of the rooms of the house, which became sad for its owners after their calamity, a grieving father still sits suffering from trembling in his body as a result of health problems that exhausted his body. He puts a picture of his eldest late son on his chest, trying to feel his son’s body, which is under the dust while he was in the prime of his youth.