YJA Star (Free Women’s Troops) guerrilla Zehra Eryılmaz lost her life alongside four other guerrillas in a clash with the Turkish army on 8 December 2019 in the Şenyayla region located in the triangle area between Muş, Diyarbakır and Bingöl cities. Body of Eryılmaz is yet to be given to her family since.

A press conference was held at the Amed (Diyarbakır) branch of Human Rights Association (IHD) on Monday with the participation of Zehra’s mother Kutsiye Eryılmaz, IHD Amed branch chair Abdullah Zeytun and Peace Mothers Assembly member Havva Kıran.

Mother Eryılmaz stated that she had gone to the Forensic Medicine Institute in Malatya to identify her daughter’s body 4 months ago.

“There, they first showed me photos of my daughter’s body on computer. I insisted that I wanted to see the body itself but not photos. Then they took me to the morgue. They opened a plastic bag and showed her remains. I just couldn’t recognise her. How can a mother not recognise her child? Is there anything more painful than this? Her body was tortured. Nobody deserves that torture. Dead should be shown some respect at least. What was done to her body is just inhuman.”

The mother said that she would go on an indefinite hunger strike if no step is taken for the body to be given to them in a week.

“Why is my daughter’s body still not given to me? Are they doing this to us deliberately?,” she asked.