The Press Center of the People's Defense Forces (Hêzên Parastina Gel, HPG) has published the names and identities of the three guerrillas who fell as martyrs on June 22-23 in Turkish state airstrikes in the Medya Defense Areas. The bombings came in response to a successful guerrilla action against an occupation operation in the Zap, which killed at least three Turkish military personnel.

The HPG said the guerrillas who fell as martyrs are Zana Govend, Berxwedan Gabar and Zagros Serêkaniyê. The statement said: "The freedom guerrillas of Kurdistan, who turned the entire area around the Zap into a bastion of resistance and dealt a heavy blow to the genocidal policies of the colonial state of Turkey, demonstrated once again that they act with the aim at defending the existence of our people and creating a free country, no matter what the cost. We extend our condolences to the patriotic people of Kurdistan, especially to the families of our martyrs.”

 Codename: Zana Govend

 First and last name: Zafer Akgun

 Place of Birth: Mardin

 Mother and father’s names: Behiye – Mehmet

 Date and place of death: 23 June 2023 / Zap

 

 Codename: Berxwedan Gabar

 First and last name: Salih Dayan

 Place of birth: Şirnak

 Mother and father’s name: Mevlüde - Hüseyin

 Date and place of death: 23 June 2023 / Zap

 

 Codename: Zagros Serêkaniyê

 First and last name: Cihad Xalid Huseyin

 Place of birth: Serêkaniyê

 Mother and father’s names: Tayha – Xalid

 Date and place of death: 22 June 2023 / Zap

Zana Govend

Zana Govend was born in Nusaybin (Nisêbîn) in Mardin (Mêrdîn). His family was connected to the Kurdish struggle for freedom, and originally came from Kerboran (Dargeçit). Govend got to know the PKK as a child and became politicized in his youth when Abdullah Öcalan was abducted from Kenya to Turkey in violation of international law in 1999. He then became actively involved in the Kurdish youth movement. In 2010, he went to the mountains.

Zana Govend completed his basic military training in Metîna, where he took part in the armed resistance for the following few years. He fought against the Islamic State, and was then sent to the Zap frontline against the invasion of Turkey.

Berxwedan Gabar

Berxwedan Gabar was born in Şırnak (Şirnex). He grew up in a patriotic environment shaped by the Botan region's centuries-old tradition of resistance. He joined the armed struggle in Rojava in 2015 when the war against ISIS was ravaging. Later he went to Shengal. Until 2017, Berxwedan Gabar took part in various liberation offensives in the region before returning to Rojava. Here he was deployed both against ISIS and Turkey's 2018 war of aggression in Afrin. That same year, he went to fight with the HPG.

During the first two years, Berxwedan Gabar spent most of his time at ideological and military academies. He has fought in the Zap since the beginning of the great invasion of 2021, which also includes Metîna and Avaşîn. He took part in the tunnel wars and was a member of the mobile guerrilla units that used their effective fighting power to control the terrain in the Medya Defense Areas. He also spent the hard fighting year of 2022 on the Zap front.

Zagros Serêkaniyê

Zagros Serêkaniyê was an Arab and was born in Serêkaniyê. He got to know the Kurdish liberation movement with the rise of the Rojava revolution. He fought in Serêkaniyê against the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian branch of the terrorist network Al-Qaeda, and in Raqqa against ISIS.

He joined the ranks of the resistance in the Turkish war of aggression in autumn 2019, which led to the occupation of Girê Spî and his hometown. After the invasion, he decided to join the PKK. Zagros Serêkaniyê was primarily active in Zap. He was deployed on almost all fronts, and belonged to the mobile guerrilla squads fighting in the tunnel war.