Guerrillas Gulbahar Mercan, Eylem Munzur and Dîcle Eylem fell as the result of a military operation carried out by the Turkish army in the province of Mardin (Mêrdîn).

The press center of the People's Defense Forces (HPG) said on Monday that the guerrillas died following an attack on the Bagok massif in Nusaybin (Nisêbîn) on 4 August.

Gulbahar Mercan was a commander of the Free Women's Association (YJA Star), while Eylem Munzur and Dîcle Eylem belonged to the Hêzên Taybet, a special unit within the guerrillas.

The HPG paid tribute to the guerrillas, “long-time apoist militants who, with their selfless attitude and a deep connection to Abdullah Öcalan's paradigm based on women's liberation, have managed to embody an avant-garde in the liberation struggle.”

The statement said: “Gulbahar, Eylem and Dîcle championed the line of the PKK and PAJK; the ideology of women's liberation and the reality of the free woman. They approached every task with determination and made the impossible possible, even under the most difficult conditions. We regard them as the epitome of the modern guerrilla existence of the YJA Star.”

The HPG expressed their sympathy to the relatives of the fallen and to the Kurdish people. The organization released the following information on the identity of the fighters:

 Codename: Gulbahar Mercan

 First and last name: Şekirnaz Kaplan

 Place of birth: Bedlis

 Mother and father’s name: Miran – Iskan

 Date and place of death: August 4, 2023 / Mêrdîn

 

 Codename: Eylem Munzur

 First and last name: Emine Kaplan

 Place of Birth: Elih

 Mother and father’s name: Dilber – Cengiz

 Date and place of death: August 4, 2023 / Mêrdîn

 

 Codename: Dîcle Eylem

 First and last name: Leyla Gülcü

 Place of birth: Amed

 Mother and father’s name: Ayten – Alaattin

 Date and place of death: August 4, 2023 / Mêrdîn

 

Gulbahar Mercan

Gulbahar Mercan was born in Xîzan near Bitlis (Bedlîs). Her family attached great importance to the preservation and cultivation of the Kurdish language and culture and, as a result, had been repeatedly subjected to state persecution since the 1980s. Gulbahar herself grew up conscious of resistance to oppression. As a young woman, she met the "Revolutionary Youth" in Amed, where she began studying. Through her active participation in the Kurdish youth movement and a profound study of the paradigm of Abdullah Öcalan, she grew aware of the inequality between men and women, which she described as the "main contradiction in life". In 2009, she left  university in her third year and joined the guerrillas.

Gulbahar Mercan's entry into the ranks of the guerrillas had a major impact on her family and especially her siblings, who joined after her. She herself first went to Gare in South Kurdistan, where she received basic training. She then moved to the Qandil Mountains and focused on self-defense. She stayed in Gever (Yüksekova), among other places, and fought in the Garzan region from 2012. Here she played a key role in the development of autonomous women's structures in the mountains and had her first experiences as a team commander. As such, she trained new fighters.

When the Islamic State (ISIS) attacked the city of Kobanê in 2014, Gulbahar Mercan went to the front against the jihadists. She was considered a tactical master and played a key role in breaking through the siege ring drawn around Kobanê by ISIS with the support of the Turkish state. In the course of the resistance, she was seriously injured. No sooner had her wound healed than she returned to battle. Only with the liberation of the city in 2015 did she return to the mountains. She deepened her knowledge and experience at the Şehîd Bêrîtan Women's Academy. She then moved back to North Kurdistan, where she was active in the field of military intelligence for about two years.

When Turkey launched an invasion of Heftanin in 2018, Gulbahar Mercan returned to the front and participated in the revolutionary guerrilla offensive "Cenga Heftanin". Later she went through a commander training at the Mahsum Korkmaz Academy.

Until her death, she was a member of the regional guerrilla command in Mardin.

Eylem Munzur

Eylem Munzur was born in Hezo near Batman (Êlih). She grew up in a rural area as the daughter of a family with a strong Kurdish national consciousness. She attended elementary and middle school in her village, but dropped out of secondary school after an argument with a pro-state teacher about male exploitation of women.

The HPG wrote that “in 2007, Eylem Munzur's family migrated to Istanbul in western Turkey. However, she could neither get used to the metropolis nor to life in capitalist modernity. She was deeply impressed by the personalities behind the names of Zeynep Kınacı and Sema Yüce after listening to the farewell letters from these women at an event. From then on she devoted herself to the ideology represented by Zeynep Kınacı and Sema Yüce.”

Between 2011 and 2013, Eylem Munzur was active in the "Revolutionary Youth" with a focus on autonomous women's organisation. After this time, she joined the guerrillas, where she quickly became a member of Hêzên Taybet. For many years, she was deployed as "Fedai" in the Medya Defense Areas. 

Dicle Eylem

Dîcle Eylem was born in Amed. Her family originally came from the province of Bingöl (Çewlîg). She grew up in an environment shaped by the Kurdish resistance and, as a child, became acquainted with the reality of Kurdistan and the oppression of the people by the Turkish state and counter-revolutionary groups. Her grandfather was murdered by Hizbullah in the 1990s. The state-controlled Islamist death squad murdered and mutilated countless people in underground torture chambers. They have been sitting in the Turkish parliament as HÜDA-PAR since May2023, thanks to Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP.

The extrajudicial execution of her grandfather was formative for Dîcle Eylem. She decided in 2008 to become a "professional revolutionary." The first years she was in the youth movement, where she worked on the transformation of society according to Öcalan's paradigm with its cornerstones of ecology, women's liberation and radical democracy. In 2012, she made the decision to join the guerrillas.

After her basic training, Dîcle Eylem was initially with the PAJK in Qandîl, where she worked in the guerrilla press. In 2014, she joined the military sector at her own request. For three years, she fought in the Zagros Mountains and at the same time documented the resistance of the guerrillas with her camera. In 2017, she first moved to the Metîna front and then moved to North Kurdistan. She wished to be deployed in Erzurum (Erzîrom), but ended up going to Mardin according to the needs of the time.