Gurbet and Fettah Tekin have been at the border vigil for a month now. The couple, who have 3 children at the front in Kobanê resisting ISIS attacks, said: “while our children are at the front we cannot just sit at home. We have been here for a month in wind, rain and mud. We will not leave.” Gurbet and Fettah Tekin say they will remain at the border until Kobanê is free. Fettah Tekin said he had lost one son in the ranks of the Kurdish Freedom Movement, while another was in prison, and 3 more children were at the resistance front in Kobanê. He added that he and his wife had been at the border since the first day of the attacks on Kobanê.

Tekin said: “We came here to support our children who are on the other side of the border involved in the resistance in Kobanê. We will do whatever we can to help the struggle and will not leave until the Kobanê resistance triumphs.”

‘The President may not be interested, but the Kurdish people are’

Tekin said that Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan might not be interested in the ISIS gangs who rape and decapitate people and want to carry out a massacre in Kobanê, but that this deeply affected all the Kurdish people from 7 to 70. Tekin added: “As we are aware of what is going on in Kobanê we are not leaving these artificial borders that have no value for us. But President Erdoğan says: ‘What has Kobanê got to do with Istanbul or Diyarbakır?’ Well, what has Egypt got to do with Turkey? Or Palestine? Even if the President is not interested in Kobanê, the Kurdish people are. The Kurdish people will not leave this border and continue to support the fighters’ struggle. Our struggle against these barbaric gangs that chop off peoples’ heads and want to rape our women and children, and the forces behind them, will grow.”

‘We can’t sit at home while our children are at the front’

Gurbet Tekin said she could not sit at home while her children were resisting in Kobanê. She added that they were anxious every time they saw a mortar land in the town, adding: “My son Süleyman Tekin (Mazlum Tor) joined the freedom struggle in 1997 and later fell during a unilateral ceasefire. My children Beritan, Dersim and Mazlum are now fighting at the front. The ruling powers are forcing this war on the Kurds. We are here because of what is happening in Kobanê and the Turkish state is attacking us with gas bombs. But as long as our children are waging a struggle against the world’s most advanced weapons, we will not abandon this border.”