Victims of ISIS' Suruç massacre commemorated in 9th anniversary

Duvar English

The 33 people who lost their lives in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) suicide bomb attack on July 20, 2015, in the Suruç district of Turkey’s eastern Şanlıurfa province were commemorated.

Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party (DEM Party) lawmakers, Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) members, Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) members, Urfa Labour and Democracy Platform components, and Suruç Families Initiative attended the commemoration held in the garden of Amara Cultural Centre where the massacre took place.

Before the press statement in the cultural center, a march was organized with a banner that read “No dream will remain unfinished.”

SGDF Co-Chair Berfin Polat said that they set out nine years ago by saying “We defended that revolution (in Rojava), now we have to rebuild it.”

Polat underscored, “Because there was a revolution won against barbarian gangs. Our comrades wanted to be murdered along with their dreams. After nine years, we are here again. We wanted to meet the revolution next to us, to meet the people, to spread the revolution to all lands, to bring it together with women.” 

Some 33 people died and 104 people were wounded when ISIS targeted young people who gathered in the center with the SGDF’s call to deliver toys to children in Kobanê province of Syria, which was then under ISIS attack.

Rojava revolution has been deemed as the independence of the "Syrian Kurdistan" region in which local Kurdish militias gained the control and defeated the ISIS attack during the Syrian Civil War, particularly after 2012.

“The revolution became our hope. This dream was wanted to be left unfinished. The state did not prevent the massacre,” Polat said.

Speaking on behalf of the Peace Mothers, Meyaser Korkmaz emphasized that they do not want another massacre and pain and said, "We want peace and freedom. Enough is enough. Let this cruelty be eliminated for all of us.”

DEM Party deputy Dilan Kunt Ayan said, “In the massacre case, instead of trying those who committed the massacre, the forces behind them, those who insist on war, they are still trying to judge the victims’ families. The then Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu shamelessly continues to play politics over these grieving families. We will not allow him.”

After the statement, carnations were placed in the places where the massacre took place. Then the graves of those who lost their lives in the massacre were visited.

ESP then shared a video in which police officers try to prevent families to visit one of the victim’s grave.

 In 13 of the 18 months following the attack on the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) rally on June 5, 2015, there was at least one bomb attack per month with the loss of life across Turkey. Nearly 500 people were killed and thousands injured in the attacks. Either the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks, or government officials said they were carried out by one of these organizations.

On October 22, 2021, the final hearing of the lawsuit about the Suruç massacre came to an end. The only defendant arrested, Yakup Şahin, was found guilty and has been sentenced to aggravated life imprisonment. He was responsible for the Ankara Train Station Massacre in 2015 and was already in prison during the trial. No other potential suspects were arrested.

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