Newroz Dijwar/JINHA

SILÊMANÎ – 18 years after the Hewlêr Massacre, Kurdish mother Selma Ferec Qaradaxi has not given up her quest for justice for the daughter she lost in the massacre.

On May 14, 1997, the Turkish army launched a cross-border operation in Southern Kurdistan (in Iraq), targeting PKK fighters. Two days after the start of the Turkish army's operation, there was a coordinated armed attack against a number of undefended civilian institutions in the city of Hewlêr, including a hospital affiliated with the Red Crescent of Kurdistan, pro-PKK newspapers and culture centers and the civilian political representative office of the PKK in the region. The victims suspect the KDP, currently the ruling party in the Federal Kurdistan Region, of supporting Turkish soldiers in the attack, which killed 62 civilians.

Selma Ferec Qaradaxi is the mother of one of the 10 victims who is still unaccounted for. Nahide had joined the PKK in 1996. Selma recalled that she initially opposed Nahide joining the PKK, saying that while she had four daughters, "Nahide was on one side and the others were on the other." However, she could not stop her strong-willed daughter from joining. Nahide was at the Roji Welat newspaper the day of the attack. Selma says a friend of her daughter said that Nahide was killed along with four others, but authorities have still not found the young woman's body or any clues to her death, 17 years later.

"I don't want their money; I want my daughter. I want to see her body one day. This is the hope I live with," said Selma. "I want to see those who shot her punished."

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