Thousands attend funeral for civilians killed in drone strike in Syria’s Kobani
KOBANI, Syria (North Press) – On Thursday, thousands of Kobani residents gathered in the city’s Martyr Dijla cemetery, leaving the city nearly empty according to local sources, to attend the funeral of three civilian women killed in a Turkish airstrike in the village of Helinj on Tuesday night.
In the funeral, speeches were made by the Autonomous Administration in the Euphrates region, the Democratic Union Party (PYD, the leading popular party in the Administration), and the Free Women’s Movement.
Citizens in attendance expressed outrage at the killings, seeing them as a continuation of massacres that took place exactly five years ago in 2015, when the Islamic State, who residents accused of being backed by the Turkish state in interviews with North Press, murdered over 250 civilians in the city.
“These three friends were killed at the hands of traitors and the Turks,” said Layla Abdo, co-president of the Kobane Intellectuals Union. “The darkness and wickedness that was brought to the city on the night of the massacre has repeated itself,” she lamented.
Abdo fondly remembered feminist activist Zehra Berkel, a member of the women’s organization Kongra-STAR who was killed in the strike. “Zehra was very active; you saw her everywhere…in every home, at every memorial, at every celebration. She was like a spring butterfly, going from flower to flower.”
“The revolution [in North and East Syria] is a women’s revolution, and because of this, they want to break women’s morale,” Abdo said of the reason for the strike, adding that “We will continue on [the martyrs’] path until we see the flag of Kurdistan flying high and all four parts are one.”
The people of Kobani were shocked at the killings, according to Mesud Muhammad, a local political activist. “Turkey announced that they had killed [Syrian Democratic Forces] leadership, but these women who were killed were just sitting and having dinner in a normal meeting,” he said.
“This is a message from the Turkish terrorists that, ‘we can strike you wherever we want to, and there are no individuals or international laws that will hold us accountable.’ We know that there is no such thing as international justice, and no international guarantees, and that international administrations operate only according to their economic interests,” Muhammad added.
The strikes were condemned earlier by the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria, and their legislative body the Syrian Democratic Council, who labeled them a violation of international law. The Kurdish Democratic Unity Party in Syria (Yekiti) and the Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party in Syria also issued a statement in which they labeled the Turkish strike a legal and ethical violation of all understandings between SDF and Russia, Turkey, and the US.
The statement called for Russia, the US, and the international community to take responsibility to prevent Turkey from targeting the region and abide by the signed agreements.
(reporting by Victor Mustafa and Fattah Issa, editing by Lucas Chapman)