Turkey plays down death toll of Kurdish youths
The steady stream of Turkey's Kurdish youths killed while fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have failed to make the news, further fueling tensions between the Turkish government and its Kurdish population.
While the de facto cease-fire with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) means there have not been frequent reports of Kurdish martyrs for the past couple of years, Turkey's eastern and southeastern provinces continue to tremble with funerals of Turkey's Kurdish youths getting killed fighting the Islamic State (IS). Coffins come across the border nearly daily from Iraq’s Yazidi region of Shengal and from Hasakah, Qamishli and Kobani of northern Syria.
The number of Turkey's Kurdish youth killed while fighting in the ranks of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and their counterpart Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) have exceeded 500. Around 35% to 40% of those killed are women.
While 300 bodies have been handed over to their bereaved families, about 200 whose identities could not be determined were buried in Kobani and Shengal where they were killed. Sixty-three of those whose identities were unknown were buried in the Turkish town of Suruc. Many corpses remain in Kobani under the rubble of pulverized buildings. Then there are more bodies in the hands of IS that have not been recovered.
Most losses were sustained after IS captured Kobani villages and then a third of the town of Kobani. Intensification of Kurdish resistance against IS between Tell Abyad and Serakaniye east of Kobani and at Qamishli and Hasakah of Jazeera canton meant more bodies were coming from those locations.
