Kader Ortakaya, who was shot dead by soldiers at the border yesterday, had written a letter to be delivered to her family before she crossed into Kobane. Ortakaya lost her life before the letter reached her parents. She wrote in the letter that she went to Kobane to fight for humanity and asked her family to support her struggle. Ortakaya was a member of the Social Freedom Party Initiative (TÖPG) and was an M.A. student at Marmara University.

Here is the letter written by Ortakaya to her family before she went to Kobane to join the historic resistance:

“My dear family,

I am in Kobanê. This war is not only a war of the people of Kobanê, but a war for all of us. I am joining this fight for my beloved family and for humanity. If we fail today to see this war as a war for us, we will remain alone when the bombs hit our houses tomorrow. To win this war means that the poor and the exploited win. I believe that I can be more useful by joining this war rather than becoming an office worker. You will probably get angry with me as I make you sad, but you will sooner or later understand that I am right.

I wish all people to live freely and equally. I wish no one to be exploited all through their lives to find a piece of bread or shelter. For these wishes to come true, one has to fight and struggle.

I will return when the war is over and Kobanê is regained. When I come back, please welcome my friends as well. Please do not try to find me. It is impossible to do that.  One of the important reasons why I am writing this mail is that I do not want you to make efforts to find me and suffer for it. If anything happens to me, be sure that you will be informed.

If you do not want me to be imprisoned and to be tortured in prison, please do not apply to the police or any other state institution. If you would do, me, you, and my friends would all suffer. Do not tell even our relatives that I am gone to Kobanê so that I won’t be imprisoned when I come back. Tear up this note after you read it.

If you want to do something for me, support my struggle. You have remained silent against all the malfunctions of the state. Say enough is enough to people being killed on the streets, to their being exposed to gas bombs, to their being bombed as what happened in Roboski. I would continue to join the demonstrations and the activities of associations if I were living with you. I entrust my struggle to you until I come back.

I embrace you all, my mother, my father and Ada, Deniz, Zelal and Mahir, who is about to be born. My special greetings to my brother Kadri. He will act as it suits him.

I embrace you all with all my revolutionary feelings.

The phone was a present from my brother. There are pictures of us in it. I send my scholarship card to my mother. Let her buy her medicine until I come back.

I love you all very much.

Goodbye for the moment”