Kurds mourn ‘mutilated’ female fighter
AFRIN: Thousands of Kurds gathered here on Saturday to mourn fighters and civilians killed in a blistering Turkish assault on the region, including female combattant Barin Kobani.
But there was no casket for the young woman fighter.
Her mutilated body appeared in a shocking video published earlier this week, prompting accusations by her family and Kurdish officials that she was “defiled” by Turkish-backed rebels.
Family members have yet to retrieve her corpse from the rebels and could not bury her with 17 other fighters and civilians during the mass funeral.
“They all have their burials, except my daughter Barin,” said her shell-shocked mother, surrounded by mourners carrying posters of the woman in her early 20s.
“They tore up her body. She doesn’t get a funeral. Oh, my daughter.”
Footage published this week by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights showed the body of a woman lying on the ground, surrounded by men, some armed.
The woman’s sweater is pulled above her head and trousers dragged low, revealing a large blackened abrasion from her chest down to her bellybutton. One man was seen stepping on her left breast.
Kobani, whose real name is Amina Omar, took up arms in 2014 to battle the Islamic State group.
She joined the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), the all-female arm of the YPG, and fought IS in Kobane in 2015, and in Raqa last year.
“I swear to God, we’ll avenge you,” cried out Kobani’s brother, 30-year-old Aref Mustafa Omar.
Sweat poured down his face and mixed with his tears as he sobbed next to his other sister, brother and their elderly, stoic mother.
He said his sister had detonated the explosives she was carrying because she did not want to be taken hostage.