JINHA

AMED- Fatma Ateş (55) was seriously wounded in Turkish state forces' bombardment of the Sur district of Diyarbakır. Fatma was finally evacuated to hospital last night, but could not be saved. At her funeral today, attendees called Fatma "the mother of the resistance behind the trenches."

Fatma Ateş was trapped in a basement in the besieged Sur district of Diyarbakır and seriously wounded by shrapnel yesterday. The 55-year-old woman waited for an ambulance for hours, but the ambulance was only able to enter the besieged district towards evening. Fatma passed away in the Gazi Yaşargil Teaching and Research Hospital.

After an autopsy, religious rites for Fatma were completed along with those for Burham Taşdelen, slain in the besieged town of Cizre. A convoy then transported her body to the village of Tepecik in the Kocaköy district of Diyarbakır province.

Ayşe Dicle, co-chair of support association MEYA-DER, spoke at the funeral. She emphasized that the ruling AKP's war in Kurdistan was a war against children and women, in which state forces stripped and exposed the bodies of women.

Çağlar Demirel, MP for Diyarbakır from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), said that the reason the AKP could not enter Sur despite all its tanks and artillery was the willpower of people like Fatma.

"Fatma was a mother to those resisting behind the barricades," said Fatma's older brother Abdürrahim Tanrıkulu. "Everyone should know that if we want to be worthy of her, we won't cry; we'll stand up for what she stood for."

Fatma's daughter Berivan Ateş, singing laments for her mother, did not leave the graveside throughout the ceremony.

Meanwhile, Fatma's relative Fahri Ateş and her two daughters Sibel and Fatma, who emerged from the besieged basement with her, are still under detention by state forces.

(mm/gc/cm)