The three female victims of the Turkish drone strike on June 23, 2020 include Zehra Berkel, Mizgin Xelil and Amina Waysi. (via social media).
Three female activists were killed in an airstrike attributed to a Turkish drone on Tuesday afternoon in the Kurdish-majority city of Kobane. The Kurdish-led Internal Security Force (ISF) in the Kobane region blamed Turkey for the attack which killed Zehra Berkel, an organizing member of the Kongra Star women’s rights group, as she met with friends in a local residence. In 2014 and 2015, Kobane became internationally recognized as the the bastion of resistance against the burgeoning Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). when the Kurdish YPG militia and its Arab partners turned back the ISIS siege of the city and began recapturing territory from the infamous Caliphate. Now Kobane finds itself under a different kind of siege: Turkish military drones in the air, and Turkish-backed Islamist militias on the ground.
Turkey reached separate ceasefire agreements with the United States and Russia after its invasion of Northeast Syria in October, 2019, allowing it to create a “buffer zone” in Kurdish territory between Tel Abyad and Ras al-Din, where Turkish-backed militias have been regularly accused of assault and theft by local witnesses. The United Nations has also released several reports detailing human rights abuses by Turkish-backed militias in the Turkish-occupied region of Afrin in Syria, less than 200 kilometers from Kobane. Despite a supposed peace, mounting evidence suggests that Turkey is in consistent violation of their agreements with the US and Russia, including the intentional targeting of non-combatant activists who speak out against their abuses.
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Syrian Kurdish leaders reacted swiftly to the murder of Berkel and her two friends, Mizgin Xelil and Amina Waysi. The latter owned the house where the three women were meeting when the strike occurred. Ilham Ahmed, co-president of the Syrian Democratic Council in Northeast Syria, confirmed the Turkish government’s involvement in the attack on Wednesday, tweeting, “Turkey does target women leaders in our areas”. Mazloum Abdi, commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) also tweeted that the attack was a “violation” of international law, and indicative of Turkey’s ongoing policy of “ethnic cleansing” in Kurdish-majority regions of Syria.
We ask the global FAI family to continue in prayer for the Kurdish people in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, as they face increasing threat from Turkish and Iranian aggression. Please pray for the hatred and violence of Islamist regimes to be restrained, for a hedge of protection around the Kurdish people and FAI field teams partnering with them on the ground, and for the Prince of Peace to continue opening doors of opportunity for our teams in the Kurdish world.
Maranatha.
