Father salutes British girl killed fighting for the Kurds
THE father of the first British woman killed fighting for the Kurds yesterday told of his pride in his “beautiful and idealistic” daughter.
Anna Campbell was working as a volunteer in the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units – known as YPG – when she died in Afrin in north-west Syria last Thursday. She was 26.
Afrin was captured over the weekend by Turkish forces after a twomonth offensive. Her family fear she was killed in a Turkish air raid.
She is the eighth Briton to die fighting alongside the Kurds in Syria against both Islamic State and, more recently, Turkish forces.
She is understood to have fought under the name, Helîn Qerecox, in the battle to liberate the last major IS stronghold of Deir ez-Zor, before asking to be transferred to face the Turkish incursion which began in January.
Her father Dirk, a folk musician, said: “Anna was very brave, she was very beautiful and was really idealistic. She was very intelligent and creative. She was a leading light in many areas and was very popular.
Activist
“She went there knowing what might happen to her. When she told me I was alarmed because I knew she was likely to face lethal fire there, if not from Islamic State then from the Turks and the Syrian Army.
“I told her that. I said, ‘You could be killed’ and she said ‘I know – there’s nothing I can do to reassure you about that’.”
He added: “I had to let her do what she wanted to. I couldn’t force her not to go. She was a grown woman, she could make her own decisions in life.”
Anna attended the £10,000-a-year St Mary’s Hall school in Brighton, and then Sheffield University, before moving to Bristol to work as a plumber.
Her father said she got her activist streak from her mother, Adrienne, who died of breast cancer in 2012.
Anna went out to Syria to join the Kurds last May. Mr Campbell, who admitted he was “in pieces”, said: “She was determined to live in a way that made a difference to the world.
“She was prepared to put her life on the line.”
He said he wanted her remembered as an “incredibly principled, brave, determined, committed woman who was an example to the rest of us”.
Friends held a candlelit vigil in her honour in Lewes, East Sussex. One mourner tweeted: “Anna Campbell was an exceptional woman who came from an exceptional family.”
Former YPG comrades praised her “revolutionary spirit”.
Commander Nesrin Abdullah said: “Campbell’s martyrdom is a great loss to us. We express our deepest condolences to [her] family and we promise to follow the path she took up.
“We will represent her in the entirety of our struggles.”