Deadly Turkish strike claims life of female worker in NE Syria

By Nalin Ali

QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Aya Ali al-Muhammad, 18, a young girl from the countryside of Qamishli in northeast Syria, woke up on Dec. 25, 2023, to go to work as usual, but she did not come home alive, as she died in a Turkish drone attack that targeted her workplace under the pretext of “protecting the Turkish national security”. 

Aya used to wear her clothes and put her scarf before heading to work at a warehouse of the cotton gin on the nearby street. This was a daily routine she had become accustomed to.  

Since 2002, Aya’s family has moved from the village of Hajiya Saghira in the south of Qamishli to Umm al-Fursan, a village that is adjacent to the city of Qamishli, in search of work to secure their basic needs.

The young woman could not read or write because she did not go to school as families of the remote areas are not interested in education, especially for girls. 

She loved playing, joking, and taking care of her clothes and elegance, her parents told North Press. She decided to help her father and brother by working to bear the burdens of family’s living conditions. 

The workshop targeted by a Turkish drone on Dec. 25, 2023 was known as Haji Jassim’s Mill in Umm al-Fursan. There were machines for cotton ginning and grains’ grinding. ​

Determined to work 

As usual, Aya did not have breakfast. She used to leave for work in the early morning before the sunrise. She worked for eight hours in ginning packed cotton in bags. 

Aya was determined to work. She was working cheerfully, her father said. “Aya was enjoying joking.” ​

Aya’s father, Ali al-Muhammad, 55, is an employee at the Qamishli Municipality of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). He works on tending trees.

His daughter used to work alongside other girls, including her relatives and friends, in nearby agricultural tasks or in loading and unloading goods for warehouses and scrap yards close to her home. 

She was not a fighter 

On Dec. 25, 2023, the female workers in Umm al-Fursan were working to finish ginning the small remaining quantity of cotton. 

A few kilometers away in the same city, Christian communities were celebrating Christmas in their homes and churches, and the institutions of both the Syrian government and the AANES were closed on that day for Christmas holiday. 

However, private civilian workshops kept operating, as a working day is important for the workers and laborers who receive a daily wage for their actual working days. Despite her suffering from a pimple in her finger, Aya insisted on completing her work to receive a full day’s wage, which amounted to 25,000 SYP (about $1.5). 

On that day, Turkey bombed several sites in Qamishli including the Simav printing press house and a factory producing air conditioner straw in Allaya neighborhood. 

The workers in their workshops do not receive detailed news updates, and choosing to stop working with every bombing means that they will not work. 

Workshop owner, Ahmad al-Muheimid, said the workshop is a civilian facility and is not affiliated with any military party. However, a Turkish drone attacked it with a shell, killing Aya and injuring two others.

After the strike, the workers checked their injuries, and they saw Aya lying on the ground, thinking she fell unconscious, as the mother recounted. 

A young man who was working there hospitalized her and the two injured female workers. Throughout the way, the other workers accompanied them tried to wake her up by calling her and moving her but in vain.

Security of Turkish border

At 3:00 PM, one of the neighbors rushed to the family’s house and informed the father that Aya’s hand was injured while she was working, and she was taken to the hospital. The neighbor said so in an attempt to mitigate the shock. 

The parents rushed without realizing that the recent bombing they heard and spread horror among their young children targeted the workshop where their daughter worked. 

“We went to Dar al-Shifaa hospital, to be informed that she passed away,” Ali, Aya’s father said. “A shrapnel penetrated her back and hit her heart.” 

Turkey claimed that targeting facilities in NE Syria on Christmas Day and in the days before that resulted in the killing of several individuals, enhanced its border security. It announced the destruction of 50 facilities where it claimed they were affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).  

The cotton ginning workshop is located in a neighborhood mostly inhabited by families from Arab tribes, including the workshop owner and the female workers. 

The facility owner confirmed that his business project was not related to any military or political entity. He estimated his financial loss at around $10,000, and he hoped the two injured workers would be recovered, but he mourned the innocent girl, Aya. 

In October 2023, five women were injured while working in cotton harvesting in shelling by the Turkish forces on a village near the town of Derbasiyah, north of Hasakah. 

The father recalled that his daughter dreamed of improving financial conditions of her family and she was eager to work to support them. 

The mother noted that everyone living in this country is forced to work tirelessly. Even women and the elderly have not stopped working hard for ten years. 

“It is a crime. We did not send her to fight or to a dangerous place. She was a worker in a civilian workshop, and finally a drone killed her,” the mother said sadly.