Mourning at bloodstained garden

2015-07-21 10:39:37

URFA (DİHA) - Shops were closed and streets echoed with the ululations of women yesterday in Suruç as the youth killed in the bombing of a culture center were carried away from the scene.

300 youth activists had headed to the town of Suruç, Turkey yesterday to take part in the reconstruction of Kobanê, the city just across the border that became famous for its heroic resistance against a Daesh siege. A bomb targeting the youth killed 30. 

The youth reached Suruç yesterday morning. Police stopped their nine buses and checked the youths' IDs. After being searched, the youth headed into the town of Suruç. Local representatives from the political parties Democratic Regions Party (DBP) and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) had submitted a request for the youth to be allowed to cross the border to Kobanê.

When the youth arrived at the Amara Culture Center early in the morning, they learned that the Suruç district governor had consented to just one small delegation of their group crossing into Kobanê. The youth who would not be able to cross the border decided to stay in Suruç to hold a celebration of the Rojava revolution; plant saplings along the border to honor those who died in the Kobanê resistance; and organize a discussion panel.

The youth gathered in the culture center garden to hold a press conference on their plans. Around noon, they gathered around a banner with the slogan of their campaign: "we defended Kobanê together; we'll build it together." That was when a bomb went off. 21 people died at the scene; more died in hospital.

After the wounded were rushed to hospital, a crowd remained at the scene. Shopkeepers closed their shutters across the town. The people of Suruç poured into the culture center garden and waited outside the hospitals, chanting slogans including "killer Erdoğan," "martyrs never die" and "PKK, revenge."

Hundreds of women ululated in protest in the bloodstained garden, then carried the 21 coffins away.

(nt)