Zehra Doğan-Nurcan Yalçın/JINHA

RIHA – In an attack on the Rojava canton of Kobanê yesterday, Daesh gangs killed at least 42 civilians. Survivors described a scene of terror in the city and the surrounding villages.

Yesterday, members of the Daesh gangs launched an attack on the city of Kobanê and its surrounding countryside. Kobanê has become famous around the world over the past year after YPG/YPJ forces led a heroic five-month resistance to repel a Daesh siege. Civilians began to return to the city after it was liberated in late January. Now, Daesh has targeted the city again in attacks that have killed at least 42, mostly women and children.

The city, which was largely razed by the Daesh attacks over the previous months, lacks hospital facilities. Most of the wounded were rushed across the border to hospitals in the province of Urfa, in Turkey. Doctors say the influx has stressed their capacities, although they cannot give a certain number of wounded. The hospital corridors are full of families in mourning. One woman here lost seven family members in a single day.

16-year-old Edlê Brahim's hospital room looks out on the hospital garden. The sound of women in the garden wailing laments fills her room. Edlê and her mother were going to gather water from the communal pump in the neighborhood of Kaniya Kurda when a group of people on a nearby roof, wearing YPG uniforms, opened fire. At first, she assumed it was a training exercise, until the wounded started to fall to the ground.

"I threw myself on top of my mother so nothing would happen to her, but she died," Edlê said. Edlê's mother had already been shot through the heart. "I can't forgive myself for not protecting her." Edlê's brother Rojhat had recently died in the defense of the city of Kobanê.

55-year-old Saliha Muhammed has come here to the hospitals upon hearing that her son had stepped on a mine fleeing the attack. International organizations have warned that since Daesh gangs abandoning the city in January planted mines and explosives in their wake, the city remains mined at a dangerously high level. Saliha has been to every hospital in the area, but she still hasn't found her son.

Nesrin Muhammed, 17, comes from the village of Berxbatan—one of three villages attacked by Daesh in coordinated and simultaneous attacks yesterday morning around 5:00 a.m. Most villagers were awake, having recently gathered to eat their last pre-dawn meal before the Ramadan fast began. The gang members quietly gathered around the village houses, then entered and started attacking.

"I don’t know what happened," said Nesrin, who is hospitalized with wounds to her arms and legs. "They were beheading all the villagers. Everything was covered in blood. Everyone died; I think my family did too, but no one is telling me."

In the hospital, children are everywhere—perhaps more than adults. 13-year-old Cangin Hindawi, who has been wounded in his feet, waits quietly by the bed of his 8-year-old sister Aya, hoping for her to wake up. Doctors say both Cangin's mother and father were killed in the attack.

"They say my family are dead; is it true?" he asks, before returning to waiting quietly for Aya to wake up.

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