Remains of People's Defense Units (YPG) and Women's Defense Units (YPJ) fighters, who fell as martyrs during the Turkish attacks on Afrin since 20 January 2018, were exhumed in a macabre propaganda exercise carried by the Turkish occupation forces. On 14 July, the state-controlled Turkish agency Anadolu (AA) reported on the Avesta cemetery in Afrin as if it were a recently discovered mass grave of "victims of the YPG".

Many families of the YPG and YPJ members who were buried in the Avesta cemetery have now spoken out and are demanding the surrender of the remains of their children. Aynur Taş told Mezopotamya Agency (MA) that her son Mazlum Taş, a YPG fighter, was buried in the Avesta cemetery in Afrin.

Mazlum Taş (Nom de Guerre: Andok Farqin) joined the YPG in 2014 and fell as a martyr in the Turkish attacks on Afrin. “When my son fell, he was buried in the Avesta cemetery. Now this cemetery has been destroyed. I heard the news on TV," she said.

"They say the cemetery they destroyed is a mass grave, but we know very well that it was not a mass grave and we don't accept their deceitful lies. We want our children; we want the remains of our children back."

The Taş family turned to the MEBYA-DER association in to receive support in their fight for the return of their son's remains. Aynur Taş demands that the Turkish authorities surrender the remains and said: “We will not give up our children. What do you want from our cemeteries? Why do they make mothers suffer so much? We know they are scared. They are even afraid of our children's bones. Enough with this torture on our dead, on us. This hateful tyranny and the massacres of the Kurds must finally come to an end."