JINHA

WAN - Fallen YPJ fighter Jiyanda Çarçela, whose body was refused entry to Turkey for 10 days, has been buried in her native province of Van.

For 10 days, the Turkish state refused to allow the bodies of 13 Kurdish fighters who died fighting Daesh to enter the country. One of those fighters was Fidan Yalçın (nom de guerre Jiyanda Çarçela). Last night, after a long resistance vigil by the families of the fighters and the local people at the Habur Border Gate, the bodies were brought into Turkey.

Jiyanda's body arrived in her native province of Van today, where a convoy joined her funeral procession on the outskirts of the city. Women carried Jiyanda's coffin on their shoulders to a cemetery in the Yeni neighborhood.

Women's activists, Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) representatives and Peace Mothers were among the crowd who marched to the cemetery today. The crowd bore images of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and of Jiyanda, as well as the flags of the YPJ, YPG and PKK.

"This mindset is afraid of us dead or alive," said Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) representative Tuğa Hezer, speaking at the ceremony. "The temporary government's mindset is the same as that of Daesh. The fact that bodies were kept waiting for 10 days in 50-degree heat is the most concrete example of this. We promise to all our martyrs: we will follow the road they have opened for women and for our people."

(ng-mc/dk/cm)