JINHA

KOBANÊ – YPJ medics say that serving as doctors in this army of women is their way of refusing the life the system pushes on them—and of preserving another kind of life.

The doctors, speaking in theramshackle building in Kobanê's ruined city center where they treat both wounded comrades and imprisoned Daesh gang members, say they lose many of their friends due to the lack of adequate medical supplies. YPJ medics and doctors Dr. AranGüneş, Dr. Arin Kobanê and Dr. Helin Beritan spoke with us about the effort to provide frontline medical service in the conditions of war.

Dr. AranGüneş graduated from the Aleppo University medical school in 2003. After working as a doctor in Efrîn for several years, she joined the YPJ when the attacks on Kobanê began.

When did you join the Kobanê resistance? What kinds of problems have you encountered during this historic resistance?

When the war in Kobanê started, I joined the YPJ and started treating wounded fighters. Because of the heavy fighting, for the last six months I've treated patients on every front and in every hospital here. On the one hand, I'm a YPJ fighter. On the other hand, I'm a doctor. We're in an important place. Anyone with willpower can fight in a war, but protecting a human life is a little different and the responsibility involved is that much greater. Treating a Kurdish fighter protecting his or her own land is a holy thing. And not being able to save a friend who's been seriously wounded in battle is always a heavy burden on our shoulders. Our resources are limited. We have almost no medicine. A lot of the wounded fighters have an urgent need for blood; many of them have died as martyrs for a lack of it.

What does it feel like to practice medicine in the YPJ? Also, you said there are problems with medicine; do you have other treatment options?

A doctor's work in the institutions of the world system involves check-ups, writing prescriptions, surgery. But we have to take care of our wounded in every sense. Sometimes doctors know the medicine won't help the wound, but for that patient's recovery, they knowthe patient's will to live gets stronger the more you give mental and spiritual support. So I think real medicine can't be about just prescribing drugs. Many of our friends have been heavily wounded, but we share the pain with them; 90% of medical recovery is psychological. I think this the world's hardest profession, and being a doctor in the Kurdish struggle, especially, is that much harder.

Have you ever treated a friend from your childhood? How did you feel at that moment?

I've treated the wounds of a lot of friends I grew up with. To tell the truth, I had a lot of trouble. For example, when Daesh bombed the border gate [between Turkey and Syria in November 2014], a normal person couldn't handle it. Only people who follow Apo [PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan]'s ideas can give meaning to that attack. And the conditions of war have had serious impacts on our psychological condition, too. During the border gate attack, there was heavy fighting and bullets were passing over our heads. In that moment, we weren't thinking. We had one goal. We were engaged inan effort to protect our wounded friends. We carried quite a few of them on our backs out of the area of the fighting.At that time, I learned that my childhood friend Özgür was wounded. The hospital had been demolished. I saw him in the warehouse there and at that moment, he drew his last breath. If conditions had been different, maybe we could have saved him. At that moment, an immense rage and hatred bubbled up inside me. I wanted to annihilate myself. But Comrade Özgür would always say during the war: "My only dream is to see the YPJ fighters dancing halay [traditional Kurdish dances] on Miştenur Hill [in Kobanê]." He died with that dream and that smile on his face.So in the face of those friends falling as martyrs, if you approach it sentimentally and disable your conscious, this rage that can mess up everything gathers within you. But to save our friends' lives we have to put our feelings aside. But at night when we lie down to sleep, we have to face ourselves.

A doctor who leaves society and becomes a fighter! How did you abandon everything the system offers and join the YPJ?

Even if the system imposes slavery on individuals, there's always a spark of rebellion burning there. Whenever you see a road to freedom, that's the way you go. The thing I wanted to experience, the life I dreamed of, I could only find in this movement.If you approach things with the mindset of the system, then if you have money, if you have a house, if you have property, that's enough. But if that passion for freedom is imprisoned inside you, you will always be chasing that freedom you lost.I always dreamed that my place would be in the struggle for freedom. You can't find another movement or leader who has been more conducive to women's leadership than Apo. He built his own philosophy based on women.This was a revolutionary moment for women's willpower and role. Apo gave women spiritual strength. For Kurdish women who didn't believe in themselves, who were easily discouraged and ineffectual, he pointed out that side of them. Everywhere in the world system, in fact, even in the countries that claim to be leaders in democracies, women don't have rights, but this movement isn't like that.

You've put balms in the wounds of hundreds of fighters in Kobanê. Have you ever encountered fighters who tried to go to the front even when they were wounded?

There were the martyrs Dicle, Pelda, Beritan, Silava and Hebûn. These friends were all heavily wounded and we told them they needed to stay in the hospital. Hebûnhad a wound in the veins in her wrist. When she was martyred, that old wound of hers was still open. Comrade Dicle was wounded in an area with heavy fighting around 10 at night and they wanted me to go to treat people there. When I got there Daesh was in close combat with our friends, and there were walls between us and them. I treated our friend five meters from there. But she was heavily wounded. That was when I noticed her old wound. We weren't able to save that friend.

Comrade Dicle had been hospitalized before. She had come to to me and said, 'I want to go to the front.' I said 'No, you can't go, because the wound in your abdomen still hasn't healed.' She sat down and started crying. When she kept insisting on going to the front, I said okay, but just wait two more days. But early the next morning Comrade Dicle and comrade Beritan took their bags and went to the front. They told the people working in the hospital, 'we're going out to get some food.' Comrades Dicle and Beritan's bodies came back to us with new wounds and with their old wounds still bleeding.

The martyr Peldaalso insisted on going to the front. I had bandaged her wounds. I was making sure she was getting better. But a week later, she went and was martyred and I never saw her again. The martyr Silava was wounded by a Kanas bullet in her foot. The martyr Delila was shot in the eye. Both of these friends went back to the war in spite of all our insistence to the contrary. We had a friend named Dicle from Kobanê who was wounded. We were carrying her to the hospital. On the way, she was just managing to speak. She was saying, "whatever happens, I'll live and I'll get revenge for my friends in kind." But when we asked her name, she couldn't even manage to say it. Dozens of our friends were martyred before Kobanê was liberated. Their eyes were all open when they died. Maybe this is just a spiritual or religious thing; maybe it's just a detail I've personally fixated on. But since the city center was liberated, all our friends have died with their eyes closed. I haven't seen one with their eyes open.

Daesh kills YPG fighters who are captured alive. Have you ever had the opportunity to treat Daesh gang members captured by the YPG/YPJ?

Recently three of our friends were captured by Daesh. One of our friends had been martyred; the other two were wounded. Because our friends were surrounded, they fought until their last bullet. They cut off those friends' heads and left them on the stones there. But we have given first aid to wounded Daesh members. We gave them food, water, whatever they needed. We treat the ones in prison in the same way. The corpse of one of our female friends fell into their hands. They ruined her body in a way that was barely imaginable. Our friends have been treated with a barbarism that has no equal anywhere in the world. But I have treated Daesh members myself. After they got better, they were treated as prisoners of war as required by the way.

Dr. Helin Beritan, from the city of Batman (Kurdish name Êlih) in Northern Kurdistan, has been a doctor for nine years. Since the Rojava revolution started, she has treated wounded YPG/YPJ fighters in all three cantons of Rojava.

After an apocalyptic war, you won a victory in Kobanê. As both a fighter and a doctor, what was this like for you?

I've been practicing medicine since 2006 and I've been assigned to Kobanê for the last six months. First, I want to say one thing. With all the medical inadequacies and lack of medicine, our work has involved giving morale. A lot of academics and doctors who have come here couldn't hide their surprise when they saw the seriousness of our work. When we were fighting in the battle for Kobanê, as soon as we got the news that a friend was wounded, we would go and find them even if it was the end of the world. We saw a lot of friends who had lost a lot of blood who managed not to be martyred because of their resolve. When our friends fall into Daesh hands they experience inhuman practices, but we treat [Daesh] in accordance with the Hippocratic oath we've taken.

How many YPJ medics worked in the Kobanê resistance? During the war, did you lose any of your fellow medics?

Since the beginning of the resistance, there have been six women doctors, each assigned to a different front. One of our [doctor] friends, a friend from Northern Kurdistan named Viyan, was martyred. But a six-person team was not enough. The front was really long and because of the intensity of the war, there were a lot of wounded. When we set out to treat one wounded friend, 100 meters in front of us another one would be martyred from loss of blood.

After losing this many fighters you're still going strong!

All our friends who were martyred in Kobanê were valuable, but some friends' deaths as martyrs were a story all by themselves. If we lose our morale in the face of these kinds of deaths, we can neither fight nor protect our friends. We don't have the chance to stop the martyrdom of these heroes, who shouldn't be forgotten for hundreds of years. We have to get stronger and get revenge for our friends and we have to bring our wounded friends back.

Dr. Arin Kobanê, who joined the Rojava Revolution in 2012, is from the Northern Kurdish city of Diyarbakır. She answered our questions with a smile on her face.

How does it feel to be a medic in the YPJ?

I've been performing medical duties in the YPJ from 2012 until today. Performing the duties of a doctor under conditions of war is very difficulty. The way we practice medicine here isn't like medicine in the system. We treat even our enemies here. I intervened for a wounded Daesh militant, an enemy of humanity, and I performed my medical duties so that he wouldn't die. I know some of our younger friends have inward reactions to this, but it's a requirement of our philosophy. Our goal isn't to kill Daesh or other forces that are enemies of the Kurdish people. We have just one goal as a liberation movement. It's to protect all the peoples living in these lands. Maybe that wounded Daesh fighter went and killed our friends. That was the first time I had come face to face with my own enemy. Psychologically, it was really difficult, but I needed to remember the humane side of things.

Do you remember any of the last words of friends who were wounded in the war?

A lot of friends reached their martyrdom while in my hands. If I can give one example, Comrade Berxwedan was wounded while surrounded by the enemy. I headed into the battle to his wound but Comrade Berxwedan lost his life right there in my hands. He had wounds in really sensitive areas. I told him myself, "don't think you'll be martyred," but when he saw me he said in a hoarse voice: "long live the YPJ, long live the YPG, long live the Leader Apo." Comrade Berxwedan died one day before the liberation of Kobanê. I've had a lot of moments like this. When we're treating these friends, we never, ever let go of our cool-headed demeanor. Of course, if these heroes didn't have iron willpower, they wouldn't have lived until today. We are part of an army with an indescribable willpower. Kobanê will now go down in history as a city of martyrs. And as YPJ fighters, we will do our duty and protect our friends until our last breath.

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