Guerrillas Ekin Amanos and Herekol Şiyar fell as martyrs in attacks during a Turkish military operation last Saturday in the Gabar region in Şırnak (Şirnex).

The People's Defense Forces (HPG) expressed their condolences to the relatives of the fallen and the Kurdish people. In a statement released by its Press Center, the HPG said: "In the last month, hostile operations have been continuously implemented in the Gabar region, including in Mawa, Hezex and Kerboran. Our friends there faced thousands of soldiers, village guards and contras, as well as the entire spectrum of military technology used by the Turkish occupation army, both from the air and on the ground. Despite this, our comrades who are resisting in Bakurê Kurdistanê in the spirit of Fedaitî withstood the attacks. They thwarted numerous attacks and operations and turned enemy contacts into lessons that the attackers will never forget.”

The statement added: “Hevalê Herekol and Hevala Ekin, who fought shoulder to shoulder with Şervan, Axîn and Bêrîtan, inflicted many blows on the enemy and repeatedly broke through the encirclement that had been drawn around them, joined the caravan of the fallen on 13 July as a result of heavy enemy bombardments. The death of these two militants once again shows what the Turkish occupying army stands for: cowardice and weakness of will."

The HPG provided the following information about the personal details of the martyrs:

 Code name: Herekol Şiyar

 First and last name: Taner Öğmen

 Place of birth: Colemêrg

 Names of mother and father: Zübeyde - Abdurrahman

 Date and place of death: July 13, 2024 / Gabar

 Code name: Ekin Amanos

 First and last name: Çinar Ahmed

 Place of birth: Qamişlo

 Names of mother and father: Saliha - Said

 Date and place of death: July 13, 2024 / Gabar

Herekol Şiyar

Herekol Şiyar was born in Yüksekova (Gever) in the province of Hakkari (Colemêrg) to a family with roots in Kurdistan and a commitment to the liberation struggle. When he was nine years old, they migrated to western Turkey. The family settled in Istanbul to escape the oppression of the Turkish state that had always existed in the Kurdish provinces of the country. As a young adolescent, however, he realized that it was difficult to hold on to one's own identity and reality away from home and in the midst of the capitalist system. So he moved back to Gever. In 2010, he joined the guerrillas there.

After a while in the Medya Defense Zones, where he received basic military and ideological training, Herekol Şiyar went to Botan. The region was considered the center of the "revolutionary people's war" at the time. When the Islamic State overran large parts of Syria and Iraq in 2014 and installed or attempted to establish a reign of terror in parts of Kurdistan, he switched to the fronts against Islamist terror. He was injured twice, some of them seriously, but continued his mission undeterred. He then returned to North Kurdistan, where he took part in the resistance for self-government in Amed.

During a brief stay in Istanbul, he was arrested and spent seven months in prison. After his release, he returned to the Medya Defense Zones and soon moved to the Gabar region, where he was a member of the guerrillas' regional command.

The HPG paid tribute to Herekol Şiyar, saying "Hevalê Herekol, whose two brothers also fought in the ranks of the guerrillas, was a spirited, almost hyperactive, courageous friend with a heart full of love for his people and his homeland, who felt a deep connection to the fallen. He was a great revolutionary for whom even raging rivers were no obstacle; he knew nothing of fear. Herekol Şiyar was a fighter who was one hundred percent fused with the ideology of Apoism. He knew that it was his duty to be wherever there were attacks on our people. The memory of this pioneering commander will always be kept alive and serve as a sign of solidarity, beyond the boundaries of life."

Ekin Amanos

Ekin Amanos was born in Qamishlo in northeastern Syria. Her parents, who were committed to the Kurdish cause, originally came from Bakur and fled to Rojava due to persecution by the Turkish state. The experiences of her family's oppression in the "old" homeland shaped her life, as did the repression and anti-Kurdish mentality of the Syrian regime.

When the Rojava revolution began in 2012, Ekin Amanos decided to join it. In doing so, she consciously decided against studying, which she had just been admitted to. She saw this phase of awakening as a path to a militant life that opened up to her as a political woman in search of her own ideal.

So she defended the revolution not only in the ideological realm, but also in the practical. She fought against Al-Nusra in Serêkaniyê and against ISIS in Til Hemîs. With this experience, she joined the guerrillas. Her goal was to defend the Kurdistan revolution as a whole.

After arriving in the mountains, Ekin Amanos joined the Free Women’s Units (YJA Star), the autonomous women's guerrillas of the PKK. She was initially deployed in the Medya Defense Zones, where she was in almost all regions. At her own request, she was later transferred to North Kurdistan.

The HPG described her as a revolutionary "who joined the struggle with the ideal of being a beacon of hope for freedom for the Kurdish people and all women. Hevala Ekin was one of those creators of awareness for a free future. She was a passionate guerrilla and representative of the militancy of the PAJK and YJA Star, who fought for freedom selflessly and with great love. Our solidarity goes to the path she took and that all of our other fallen soldiers took before her."