Zehra Doğan-Beritan Elyakut/JINHA

RIHA - Fidan Kanlıbaş watched her friends and fellow activists die before her eyes in the bombing in Suruç on Monday. Now, Fidan says her only hope to recover from the massacre is to carry out her comrades' goal of traveling to Kobanê.

Fidan Kanlıbaş came to Suruç as part of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF) campaign for Kobanê's reconstruction. When a bomb went off at the SGDF's press conference, Fidan was hospitalized. After she was released from the hospital, she returned to the site of the bombing.

Fidan had previously spoken to JINHA when she came to Suruç in November, after Daesh attacks on the city of Kobanê (just across the border) had begun. She worked with Kobanê refugees there. Since the bombing, Fidan has remained at the site of the bombing, not speaking a word. When she spoke to JINHA, this is what she said:

"Since November, I've been working in the tent city in Suruç with people from Kobanê. I went to Izmir for a time to visit my family, who lives there. We were working on SGDF's Kobanê solidarity campaign for a while; as a [Kurdish] patriot, I joined in. The goal of the SGDF's campaign was for youth from different fractions to come together and struggle for the children of Kobanê. Our only goal was to make a park, nursery and playground for the children. Bringing smiles to the faces of children living in war; that was our goal.

"Early in the morning, the Izmir team got together and we hit the road. We had collected colorful clothes for the children. Because we didn't have space, we gave them to the HDP solidarity truck. At every break along the way, we sang revolutionary songs and danced line dances. Everyone was really excited; some people couldn't sit still from excitement. Many of them had never seen Suruç or Kobanê. Because I had worked here for a long time, they were always bombarding me with questions and screaming with delight at my answers. I'll never forget the way their eyes shone with excitement.

"The first to get to Suruç was the Izmir team. We immediately headed for the culture center garden. There were people so tired they were stretching out on the ground; who could have guessed that a few hours later that lifeless bodies would be stretched out there in the same spot? We pushed all the tables together and prepared breakfast. When most of our friends got here, we had breakfast. A lot of us met each other for the first time over the breakfast table. Some of us met dancing line dances, some having political arguments. Everyone had the same light in their eyes. There was happiness emanating from the eyes of these young people who believed in the revolution. Everyone was telling each other about their new projects and what they wanted to do in Kobanê. Our only fear was not being helpful. Friends in Kobanê were really excited; they were calling us and asking how many people would come. I said 'we'll all come, 200 of us.' They said, 'How will we accommodate you? We prepared for 50 people.' I said, 'But heval [comrade], you have immense hearts; there must be room for everyone in your hearts.' And it really did end up that way. Now our friends each have a place in their hearts.

"Then it happened, a big explosion. Those youth singing revolutionary songs, who still hadn't finished saying, 'long live the peoples' fraternity' had their bodies torn into pieces before the words left their mouths. We picked up the pieces of our friends with our hands. What kind of pain is this? A lot of our friends were stuck under the dead bodies. Can you imagine? Your comrade who you sang revolutionary songs with is under a dead body, trying to breathe? I think anyone, me included, would prefer death to experiencing this. I say, I wish I had died.

"Normally I'm someone who gets really affected by seeing blood, but when I saw our friends in the hospital, with their arms blown off and their bodies in pieces, I hugged them tightly. The survivors were giving victory signs. I had been to Kobanê before and seen people who died, and along the Suruç border I experienced a lot of heavy things, but the worst pain was this explosion. It's really painful to see the tattered bodies of people you were talking to five minutes before.

"I'm an Alevi. Even if I haven't lived in the [Kurdistan] region, I know very well what the mourning dirges here mean. The state always made us wail these dirges. A lot of those who died in the explosion were Turkish; the same goes for our surviving friends. Before, they didn't really know the effect of those dirges. Now they say they've understood why the dirges of mothers leave you with such an aching pain.

"In the morning, the Urfa Metropolitan Municipality [workers] cleaned up the blood from the explosion, smiling. This means everything. A day earlier, there was a rally here. They could have done an explosion then, but they did it here. Their goal was to isolate the Kurds; they couldn't stand to see any people's solidarity with the Kurds. It was obvious that there would be an explosion. Normally, here, not even a bird can fly without being known, but dozens of our foreign friends' cars were never checked. Just two buses coming from Istanbul were searched with a fine-toothed comb, but one went totally untouched. That made us suspicious. The person who carried out the massacre could have been someone who infiltrated us, because when that many good-hearted people came together, no one could imagine that anyone doing such contemptible things could be among us.

"I don't want to leave this place. If I go, I'll get even worse. I don't know what my life will be like after this. The only thing I want is to give the toys my friends collected to the children, and tell them the story of these toys. I want to go find life again by embracing those children, those children who know pain better than we do."

(fk/cm)