KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – Eight years have elapsed since the Kobani massacre, yet Jahida still vividly recalls the details of her son’s murder. He was just ten years old when he was killed.
Jahida al-Daher, a 40-year-old Kobani resident, recounts the events from eight years ago to North Press, “On that fateful night, my three children and I were at home when the shooting began. Unfortunately, my eldest child lost his life. My husband was away, working in Qamishli.”
Kobani residents refer to June 25, 2015, as the “night of treachery.” It was on this night when the Islamic State (ISIS) launched an attack on the city, claiming the lives of 253 people and injuring 273 others, most of whom were children, women, and elderly.
Muhammad and Daher
Al-Daher says, “I called my son three times, but he did not stop running towards his grandfather’s house after we heard the sound of gunfire that had filled the city. Suddenly, my son Daher fell to the ground in front of our house. I saw his blood; he was hit by a bullet close to his heart.”
At first, the woman thought that the sound of gunfire was a celebration of having “liberated the town of Sarrin, south of Kobani, from ISIS.” However, she was shocked when she saw, with her own eyes, an ISIS gunman firing towards them and, eventually, her son was hit.
“My son lost his life in my arms covered in blood while his elder brother was crying,” the grieved mother tells North Press.
With sadness and pain, she adds, “If Daher were still alive, he would have been about 16 years old.” The woman demands that the killers and perpetrators of the massacre be held accountable.
Died of agony over daughter’s death
The tragedy of Shahin Baker, 50, is no different from the previous one, as he lost her 11-year-old daughter, Zouzan, in the massacre.
Baker, who lives in the Kaniya Kurdan neighborhood, in the eastern part of the city, says that the sound of gunfire continued without interruption. When he and his family left the house, he saw more than a hundred people on the street. “All the neighbors were outside their homes,” he says.
Baker states that, within a span of two minutes of leaving their house, they were met with a barrage of bullets in which his daughter lost her life.
At the time, Zouzan was in fifth grade, and her mother died overwhelmed by her daughter’s death.
Baker urges the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) to bring justice to the victims and to hold accountable all those involved in the massacre in the presence of the victims’ families.
Double tragedy
Hadiba Ali, 56, had to cope with a double tragedy as she lost her child and her husband in the massacre.
Even eight years after the massacre, Ali has not been able to forget what happened. Every little detail is still vividly etched in her memory.
“It was the seventh day of Ramadan,” she tells North Press. “My children and the neighborhood’s residents were asleep in their homes. Suddenly, the sound of gunfire, and the crying and wailing of the neighbors was heard loudly.”
She adds to North Press, “We got out of home to see what is going on; we saw bodies west of our home and four ISIS gunmen in a vehicle.”
The four gunmen then opened fire, injuring Ali, her child and her husband. Her husband and son succumbed to their wounds.
She and three of her children were injured. She was hit in the shoulder, her eldest daughter was wounded in both her legs, her second daughter was injured in the side of her torso, and her third child was also injured.
Jihan Muhammad Bozan, an official at the Martyrs’ Families Association, an organization affiliated with the AANES concerned about families of the victims who were killed either in Turkish shelling or in battles against ISIS, states that 253 individuals were killed in the massacre and 273 others were injured.
Among the victims were 37 children and 77 women, three of whom were pregnant at the time. The massacre also left 93 children without one or both of their parents.
Bozan adds that when ISIS attacked Kobani and committed the massacre, they didn’t differentiate between young and old, child and adult, or between a father and a mother. There were children as young as one to 10 years old who were killed without any hesitation.