The central headquarters command of the Free Women's Troops (YJA Star) published the identities of guerrillas Baharîn Dersim and Mizgîn Boran, who died fighting against Turkish occupying forces in the northern Kurdish region of Garzan in November 2021."

The identity information of the two fallen commanders is as follows: 

Codename: Baharin Dersim
First and last name: Leyla Şêxo
Place of birth: Aleppo
Names of mother and father: Heyat – Ahmed
Date and place of death: 23 November 2021 / Garzan

Codename: Mizgîn Boran
First and last name: Emel Güçlü
Place of birth: Ankara
Names of mother and father: Hacer – Mustafa
Date and place of death: 23 November 2021 / Garzan

The YJA Star statement said: "We are waging the hardest war for the physical liberation of Rêber Apo [Abdullah Öcalan] and the freedom of our people. As the freedom movement of Kurdistan, we pay the price of freedom by witnessing our  valuable comrades falling as martyrs. Our fight continues through the commitment, sacrifice and great courage of so many of our comrades and their daily heroic acts. It represents a great source of hope for the Kurdish people as well as for all peoples of the Middle East. As a women's freedom movement, we have taken on the responsibility to lead the fight at this stage.

The YJA Star commanders fight with the women's units on the front lines. On 23 November 2021, our comrades Baharîn Dersim and Mizgîn Boran fell in the Garzan region in this war marked by sacrifice. As the YJA Star Central Command, we remember her with respect and gratitude. We express our condolences to the Şêxo and Güçlü families and the entire Kurdish people."

The statement said: "The fight for freedom creates important and courageous personalities. The self is strengthened by the inviolability of the value of freedom. Every step of our comrades, who turned to the mountains to experience this essence, this self and this truth, and joined the freedom struggle to become courageous fighters of a resistant people, was based on the principle of fighting for the freedom of the Kurdish people , Kurdish women and all women. It is the greatest wish and goal of every YJA star fighter to pursue the dreams of our dear companions who lived and fought for them until their last breath and to lead the fight to victory under their command."

Baharin Dersim

The statement added: "Our comrade Baharîn came from Afrin and was born in Aleppo. Although she was not born and raised in Afrin, she grew up with a connection to the language, culture and nature of the people of Afrin.

The enemy has always pursued a special warfare policy to alienate the people of Afrin from their nature and loyalty, but he has not succeeded. The people of Afrin have always maintained their Kurdish identity and, when the time came, took up arms and barricaded themselves against their executioners in the Kurmanc, Lêlûn and Hawar mountains.

Our comrade Baharîn also grew up in such a patriotic family and got to know Rêber Apo, the Kurdish freedom movement and the guerrilla war at a young age. On the one hand, she wanted to become a revolutionary and fight as a guerrilla fighter, but on the other hand, she thought carefully about realizing a women's revolution in Rojava. She was convinced that a revolution led by women would be possible in the region. However, when the international plot against Rêber Apo took place in 1999, she wanted to continue her fight as a guerrilla. So she joined the PKK in 2000."

Mizgin Boran

The statement continued: "Our comrade Mizgîn Boran was born in Haymana district of Ankara. Haymana is one of the places where the Kurdish population of Central Anatolia, which has always opposed assimilation, was exiled.

She was forced to settle there. But just like comrade Mizgîn's dear family, the Kurds there have never forgotten their connection to their language, their culture and their country, even though they did not grow up on Kurdish soil.

Heval Mizgîn grew up with the dream of one day seeing Kurdistan. She learned about the Kurdish freedom movement and followed in the footsteps of Mizgîn Newal, Nûjîn Ankara, Alişêr Xelîkan and Nagihan Akarsel, who had walked this path of truth before her. So in 2010, in the second year of her philosophy studies at Ankara University, she joined the Kurdish freedom movement and went to the mountains."