The Press Center of the People's Defense Forces (HPG) has announced the names of three guerrillas who were killed in North Kurdistan.

Eylem Stêrk and Sozdar Evîn were killed in late July in a military operation by the Turkish army in the (Beytüşşebap) Elkê area of ​​Botan, and Armanç Devrim was killed on 12 August in the Kato Marînos area of ​​Van. The HPG praised the three women as determined freedom fighters of Kurdistan and expressed their condolences to their families and the Kurdish people.

The HPG obituary gave the following information:

 Code name: Eylem Stêrk

 First and last name: Meryem Önür

 Place of birth: Şirnex

 Names of mother and father: Kadriye – Ahmet

 Date and place of death: July 30-31, 2024 / Botan

 Code name: Sozdar Evîn

 First and last name: Betül Aydın

 Place of birth: Çewlîk

 Names of mother and father: Valide – Nusrettin

 Date and place of death: July 30-31. July 2024 / Botan

Code name: Armanç Devrim

First and last name: Hacer Tekin

Place of birth: Colemêrg

Names of mother and father: Asya - Hacı

Date and place of death: August 12, 2024 / Wan

Eylem Stêrk

Eylem Stêrk was born into a nomadic family from the Didêrî tribe in Şirnex-Hezex. She only went to school for a short time and grew up relatively untouched by the influences of the Turkish state. Her family moved across the high alpine pastures with their animals in the summer and only lived in the village in the winter.

Eylem met the guerrillas for the first time as a child and was impressed by them. As an adolescent, she began to question the traditional role of women in society. She realized that girls are prepared from the beginning to be good wives to men. She did not want to accept this supposed fate. The only possible alternative was the guerrillas, which she joined in Botan in 2014.

She went to the Medya Defense Areas for basic training. Since life in the mountains was not foreign to her, she quickly settled in. She continued her military and ideological training and from 2015 fought in various areas as a militant of the Association of Free Women (YJA Star) against theIslamic State. She gained a lot of combat experience in the process.

In preparation for a deployment in Bakur (North Kurdistan), she took part in courses on guerrilla warfare in democratic modernity. She examined her previous practice and her own personality and studied the ideology of women's liberation in depth. She then fought for a long time in various areas in northern Kurdistan.

Sozdar Evîn

Sozdar Evîn was born in Bingöl (Çewlîk) and grew up in an environment assimilated by the Turkish state. Under the influence of false claims about the PKK by close relatives, she was active in the youth association of a Turkish party as an adolescent.

Nevertheless, she also had contact with revolutionary circles and was friends with Sema (Zîlan Azak) and Seran (Berfîn Bezencir), who later died in the freedom struggle. This made Eylem question the prejudices about the Kurdish liberation movement that had been instilled in her at a young age. Sema, Seran and Eylem moved to Bedlîs to study.

In 2015, Eylem met guerrilla fighters for the first time in Garzan. After this encounter, her prejudices crumbled. She had several opportunities to discuss with fighters and observe their way of life. The renewed Turkish campaign of extermination in Kurdistan in the summer of 2015 was a turning point in her life. Above all, the systematic destruction of guerrilla graves by the Turkish military influenced her decision to give up her studies and become a freedom fighter in the mountains.

After an initial stay in the mountains of Garzan, she went to Kato Marînos to a unit led by the later fallen commander Azê Malazgirt (Aslı Özkaya), who taught her the basics of guerrilla life. Eylem's decision to join the guerrillas was an emotional one; in discussions with Commander Azê and other fighters about the issue of women's liberation and the philosophy of Abdullah Öcalan, this step was given an ideological foundation.

Eylem later described this phase as the most significant time of her life. After training in the Medya Defense Areas, Eylem stayed as a YJA Star fighter in various regions in southern Kurdistan and took on important tasks. Most recently she fought in Botan.

Armanç Devrim

Armanç Devrim was born in Hakkari (Colemêrg)-Gever and belonged to the Marînos tribe. She grew up in an environment close to the Kurdish freedom movement and was inspired by the self-confident women who fought as guerrillas in the mountains. Patriarchal and feudal ways of thinking made her angry, and the exploitation of women as commodities in the capitalist system disgusted her.

She rejected a life as a traditional woman in society and looked for alternatives. In 2015, influenced by the fight against ISIS in Kobanê and Shengal in the Zagros Mountains, she joined a guerrilla group and received basic training in which she acquired her first knowledge of armed struggle and studied the women's liberation ideology and analyses of Abdullah Öcalan.

She then worked in various places in the Medya Defense Areas and took on tasks in the construction of underground positions and in the education sector. After completing specialized military training, she returned to Bakur and last fought as a YJA Star militant in Van, where she was killed in an enemy attack on 12 August.