A world-traveled, biochemist woman guerrilla commander
ANKARA (DİHA) - YPJ (Women's Protection Units) guerrilla commander Seran Altunkılınç (nom de guerre Seran Anatoliya) lost her life one week ago fighting for the struggle of the liberation of Kurdish women, a struggle she discovered at a young age and for which she eventually gave up a career as a biochemist.
Altunkılınç, who had been a guerrilla for the last nine years, lost her life in the town of Mebruka, in the Cizîrê canton of Rojava, in the course of an effort to save a wounded fighter. Altunkılınç had a B.A. in biology and a master's in biochemistry. She spoke five languages (Kurdish, Turkish, English, German and Italian). She was world-traveled. She had the green light to start a career as a chemist. Instead, she chose the guerrilla.
Although many members of Inner Anatolia's Kurdish community have joined the ranks of the guerrilla over the years, Seran became the first to be buried in her native soil, in a funeral in her native village of Çevirme, in Kırşehir province.
Altunkılınç's parents, who migrated from Kurdistan to Inner Anatolia, told Dicle News Agency that their daughter showed a fighting spirit from a young age. It was in high school that Altunkılınç became conscious of the Kurdish movement and became involved in activist activities. "All her male friends were leery of her; she played great football," noted her father Hüseyin Altunkılınç. When Seran traveled to Germany in 1999, she became more closely involved in the Kurdish movement.
Seran Altunkılınç went to university to study biochemistry in both Ankara and Adana. She also went to Italy for her studies 2005. It was in 2006, when she was approved to start a career as a biochemist, that she decided to join the guerilla. She chose as her nom de guerre Seran Anatoliya, honoring her native land. 10 months ago, in 2014, She headed to Kobanê to command a special operations team. She was trying to rescue a wounded fighter under her command when a piece of shrapnel entered her belly, killing her.
Her mother Servet Altunkılınç said it was a long journey to retrieve Seran's body, but it left her deeply impressed by the solidarity countless people felt for her "little girl." Soldiers worked hard to obstruct her coffin crossing the border, deploying armored vehicles to stop the crowd who had gathered in the middle of the night to receive her coffin. Eventually, they managed to secure her coffin. She noted that she was amazed to see that a crowd had waited into the late hours of the night in the city of Diyarbakır to greet Seran Altunkılınç's funeral convoy as it entered the city.
Mother Altunkılınç expressed her deep respect for her daughter's comrades in the YPJ. She called on people around the world to stand up for the struggle for humanity in Rojava.
"Let their Kaaba be humanity, let their religion be peace; that's all," said Servet.
(cm/nt)
