Grave of YPG fighter who died in Kobanê desecrated in Adana

In Ceyhan district of Adana, unknown persons have desecrated the grave of YPG fighter Hogir Kaya who died in Kobanê in June 2015.

The grave of the YPG fighter Hogir Kaya (nom de guerre: Erdal Zagros), who is buried in Ceyhan district of Adana, has been desecrated. The perpetrator(s) gained access to the cemetery last Sunday in order to destroy the grave of the fighter who died in Kobanê in June 2015. In the attack, the gravestone was broken, and flowers have also been torn out of the grave. It is noticeable that only the grave of Kaya has been attacked. He is also the only fighter of the Kurdish liberation movement who is buried in the Ceyhan Cemetery.

In recent years, the destruction of the graves of Kurdish martyrs has become more frequent in Turkey. In most cases, individual gravesites are the target of attacks by the Turkish army or police, while entire cemeteries of martyrs are also desecrated. The Turkish judiciary does not consider these incidents to be disturbances of the peace of the dead.

Bodies kidnapped from Garzan

Kurdish society experienced the greatest trauma in recent years in connection with the desecration of martyrs' graves at the end of 2017, when the Turkish state ordered the destruction of the Garzan Cemetery of Martyrs in the Kurdish province of Bitlis. The cemetery was located near the village of Oleka Jor (Yukarı Ölek); where nearly 300 members of the Kurdish guerrilla organizations HPG and YJA-Star as well as the YPG and YPJ were buried. After the cemetery was destroyed, their bodies were exhumed on the instructions of the Istanbul chief public prosecutor's office and taken to the forensic medicine department there. They were then buried in the Kilyos Jewish cemetery not far from the seaside resort of the same name at the European entrance to the Bosphorus, in plastic boxes under a sidewalk in a section for "the nameless."

Only 22 bodies returned to families

Where the abducted remains of Kurdish martyrs were taken has only been known since the end of 2019. In the spring, the Mezopotamya news agency (MA) had published video footage of the exhumation of an abducted body, which had caused international outrage. So far, however, the Turkish authorities have only returned the bodies of 22 of the martyrs to their families.

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