YJA Star guerrilla Ezda Meşkan (Şehla Tekin) was buried in the cemetery of the nameless in Şırnak after her martyrdom in a clash in September 2022. Her remains were exhumed to be reburied in Hakkari.
Two guerrilla fighters were martyred on Mount Cudi in Şırnak, Northern Kurdistan as the guerrillas hit a Turkish military unit near the village of Serdehlê on 7 September 2022. Several soldiers were killed and injured during the course of the action.
On the Mistê Elî slope, fighting erupted between the guerrillas and Turkish troops and the area was bombed by the Turkish army. YJA Star (Free Women’s Troops) guerrilla Ezda Meşkan (Şehla Tekin) and HPG (People’s Defense Forces) guerrilla Mahir Başkale (Emrah Duman) fought bravely in the battle and under the bombardment until their last breath and fell as martyrs.
The body of YJA Star guerrilla Ezda Meşkan was buried in the cemetery of the nameless in Şırnak province without a revelation of her DNA results.
Following a DNA match after six months, Meşkan’s family came to Şırnak from Hatay and exhumed their daughter’s body from the cemetery of the nameless. The family set out for the Yüksekova district of Hakkari to bid farewell to their fallen daughter.
BACKGROUND
Ezda Meşkan was born in the village of Meşkan in Gever (Yüksekova) district of Hakkari. Many people from the village and her relatives joined the Kurdish liberation struggle. Ezda grew up in a corresponding atmosphere and met guerrilla fighters as a child. The decisive factor in her decision to join the armed struggle was the murder of PKK co-founder Sakine Cansiz in Paris in January 2013. On 15 August 2013, she went to the mountains and did basic training in Xakurke. Afterwards, she took part in the defence of Maxmur and Kirkuk against ISIS and played a major role in beating back the Islamists. During this time, she became deeply involved with patriarchal structures of domination and came to believe that a new life must be built on women's freedom. She grappled with the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan and her own personality and finally went to Northern Kurdistan in 2016. In Botan, she focused on avenging the massacres committed by the Turkish state during the urban war. In the last six years, she took part in numerous guerrilla actions and developed into a leading commander of the YJA Star.
