06/24/2020

Feminist activist killed in drone attack

Bombing of Kurdish village in northern Syria (Press Release)

Picture: Kamal Sido in Kobane in March 2016

According to local Kurdish sources, four women were killed in a Turkish drone attack near Kobanî in northern Syria, yesterday. One of them was feminist activist Zahra Barkel. The three other women were members of one family. More people are said to have been injured in the attack in the Kurdish village of Hilindsch, which is located to the east of the town of Kobanî. The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) condemned the drone attack.

"The local people are sure that the attack was aimed at the Kurdish activist – who had fought for women's rights in Syria for years," stated Dr. Kamal Sido, the STP's Middle East Consultant. For the Kurdish population and many other people all over the world, the city of Kobanî has become a symbol against the tyranny of the so-called "Islamic State" (IS). Now, Turkey is attacking it in a targeted manner in order to promote the president's Islamist agenda.

After months of IS siege between September 2014 and January 2015, the Islamists had suffered their first defeat in Kobanî. "When I celebrated the Kurdish Newroz festival with the people there on March 21, 2016, I saw that the people had high hopes regarding the reconstruction of the city and the region," Sido recalls. "Turkey deliberately tried to thwart the efforts right from the beginning."

The NATO leadership, and in particular the German Federal Government, should ensure not to become partly responsible for Erdogan's inhuman policy through arms supplies and political, diplomatic, and financial support for Turkey. "Turkey's actions in conflicts such as in Syria or Libya would hardly be possible without the backing of NATO and in particular the German Federal Government", the Middle East Consultant explained. "For the second year in a row, Turkey was the number one recipient of German weapons of war." Apparently, Erdogan's government ordered 344.6 million Euros worth of war weapons from Germany last year alone – accounting for more than a third of Germany's total war weapons exports. "After Syria's Kurdish people and their allies lost at least 11,000 lives in the fight against the Islamic State, they are now likely to be left to Erdogan's tyranny," Sido stated. "At least 25,000 people from Northern Syria were injured in the fight against the IS."