Stories of Resistance of Age_2

The resistance of Hemam and Qestal Jendu villages proved that the occupation and its mercenaries would not have advanced without warplanes' support.

GHANDI ALO-TOLIN HASSEN

AFRIN

As part of an unequal battle in the weapons and number, in which the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries used aircrafts and all modern and sophisticated weapons against the unarmed people and a narrow geographic area. Afrin residents and their fighters of the People and Women Protection Units (YPG and YPJ) were armed with the will and determination to defend their land. In 58 days of the Resistance of the Age, heroic epics made repelling the second most powerful army in NATO accompanied by thousands of mercenaries deprived of humanity, and much of the detail of those epics buried by the martyrdom of those who fought in those battles, and few of them remained in the memory of those who came out of them and still continue the resistance in the second stage clinging to the promise of the revenge for the martyrs and Afrin’s liberation.

The resistance in its first stage, in which the names of the strugglers as Avista Khabour, Ilan Dara, Barin Kobanî, Pulat and others whose names became symbols of that historical resistance emerged. In this report, a fighter witnessed some of the events of the resistance tells us details of a side of that resistance and legendary epic.

The fighter in the ranks of the People Protection Units Khemgin Jiashin from Shera district of Afrin canton was a fighter in a group that showed great resistance and proved that the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries would not have advanced on the land of Afrin without warplanes and the air force.

Khemgin told ANHA agency details about some of the battles in which he fought with his comrades who martyred defending Afrin, asserting that they would not leave the point or village only after they inflict heavy losses to the Turkish occupation army and mercenaries, and confront them despite their support of the air force and modern drones.

Khemgin said, “Before the start of the Turkish attacks on Afrin, I was in Ghazawiya village. After the announcement of a state of alert for a possible Turkish attack, we moved to Iska village. On January 20, 2018, we received information that the Turkish occupation warplanes would bomb Afrin so we emptied our known and exposed points, and on the same day, the aggression took place and more than 70 warplanes hovered, alternating the bombardment of Afrin canton, and then the skies of Afrin turned into a mass of fog and on the ground, the sounds of ambulances mingled with the screams of mothers who lost their children and family members because the Turkish air strikes targeted mostly residential and civilian areas and committed massacres against our people in Afrin."

Resistant of Hemam village

Khemgin said that after the bombing of the aircraft which declared the start of the war, YPG, YPJ and other military forces spread on the fighting fronts in addition to the large participation by the forces of Society Protection and the Self-Defense Duty, and Khemgin headed with his group to Hemam village on the border of Janders district to repel the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries’ attacks where the battles started on the first day of the Turkish occupation’s attacks, noting that their attacks targeted a hill overlooks the village near the border.

Khemgin began to recount the events he had witnessed in the village saying, “When we arrived at Hemam village, the sounds of fighting were heard from the hill that overlooks the village. We were asked to go to the hill to support our comrades who remained there because some of them were wounded and rushed to the hospitals by their comrades and not many fighters were left. We formed a group consisted of nine people. The fighter Avin was chosen to lead our group. Then, they took one of the fighters in our group and sent him to another front, and we remained 8 people.”

He added, "We carried our weapons and ammunition and headed to the hill on foot. As we approached the hill, we received information on the radio that the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries reached the top of the hill from one side and we were asked to be careful, so we decided to climb up so that we could save them if they are okay or bring their corpses if they were martyred or injured. Due to the seriousness and sensitivity of the situation and for the drones that began to hover, we divided ourselves into two groups. A group headed towards the hill and I was among them and the other group stayed on the edge of the hill to intervene if we asked help.

We slipped from the back of the hill from the side that overlooks the village, the only place where we could move because the other three sides were being shelled by the artillery shelling and mortars and they were under the enemy’s fire. As we approached the hill, we felt the bullets’ sounds passed over our heads and it seemed to be fired from nearby due to the loudness of their sounds. That position took place with the start of the sunset that overwhelmed the scene the fear that holds breath. We were distributed on the hill and creeped towards the points of our comrades, but we did not know whether one of them was still alive or not. We moved very cautiously and tried to listen our comrades’ voices or their bullets’ sounds, but it was difficult to distinguish between the sounds of bullets and their direction, and when we got closer, we felt the bullets coming out of one of our comrades’ points towards the enemy.

And one of our comrades shouted to a fighter in the point that we were his comrades and we came to help him. When he heard our voices, he also shouted and said, "Come quickly,” we rushed towards him, and jumped into the trenches and behind the berm where he was stationed in. The fighter was elderly in the fifth decade of his life and wounded with his right eye, and blood covered a side of his face and his shoulder, and despite that, he continued to fight and repel the bullets that hit him with shells fired by the occupation army and its mercenaries towards him, and told us, “Support me and we will not allow them to progress.”

Khemgin added, "I stopped shooting and took out a piece of gauze and sterile that were with me and treated the wound of the old fighter. Then, the night was come and amid the intensification of the battle, we were hearing the sounds of explosions on the edge of the hill.”

He also said, "These were sounds of the mines that we planted on the edge of the hill to prevent the climbing of mercenaries, they seemed to be exploded."

Khemgin added, “We spoke later with our second group and asked it to climb the hill. It did not take minutes until they reached us and we expanded our front and confronted the attacks from the three sides. Then, we forced the mercenaries and the occupation army to retreat. The commander Avin asked one of our comrades to help the old fighter and send him to our comrades in Hemam village, and despite his attempts to stay with us, but the commander insisted on him to go to heal his wound, and then, we camped around the hill and we could hear the sounds of warplanes hovering in the sky.”

“Before the dawn, the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries resumed the intensive shelling on the hill. The rockets and missiles were landed on us from all directions. We tried to protect ourselves from the shrapnel inside the trenches, but due to the intensity of the shelling, the commander Avin was seriously wound in her face, and we told the command about that. They asked us to take her to the hospital and we assigned the fighter Joan to lead the group's leadership. After a few minutes, they asked us to withdraw from the hill in anticipation of the bombing of the air force with the sunrise, and so we withdrew from the hill and headed to Hemam village.”

Khemgin continued, “In the day, the Turkish occupation aircrafts bombed the hill, it thought that we are still on the hill. After they made sure that no one was on the hill, the mercenaries climbed the hill and began shelling the village of Hemam with artillery and mortars, and strong clashes erupted between our fighters and the army and its mercenaries in the village with the support of the drones and the bombardment of the warplanes. We took all civilians from the village to save their lives from the brutal bombardment. The villagers stayed with us. They were members of the Society Protection Forces (HPC). By the evening, the mercenaries entered the village and amid heavy bombardment of warplanes and the artillery, they occupied half of the village.”

“At that time, a member of HPC was injured and remained trapped inside the village’s mosque. We knew that he had two children with him in the mosque. We had to get them out at all costs, but the mosque became the dividing line between us and the occupation army and its mercenaries. One of the fighters tried to infiltrate and save them, but he was martyred before reaching them.”

“And by the evening, we sneaked into the mosque, but the wounded was martyred within the mosque due to his wounds, but we were able to save the two children and took the corpse of the martyr.”

Khemgein added, “After the frequent escape of the mercenaries towards the border, the Turkish occupation army closed the crossings that had been opened to pass the mercenaries in order to prevent the mercenaries from fleeing. The Turkish occupation army was targeting the mercenaries and killing them, and I saw that with my eyes."

“After a few days of fighting, the occupation army and the mercenaries were unable to advance further in Hemam village. One morning, after the Turkish occupier confirmed that its mercenaries could not advance, they launched intensive raids on the village. The bombing destroyed half of the village. Then, we withdrew gradually from the village in order to not lose a lot of martyrs,” he said.

village  The resistance of Qestal Jendu

After YPG, YPJ and all the fighters in Afrin showed heroic resistance in Hemam village, the instructions came to head to Qestal Jendu village in Shera district which was witnessing fierce battles, especially on the strategic hill. A group of the fighters, including Khemgin was sent to this village.

 He added, "When we went to Qestal, we passed through Janders where life was still almost normal. The remarkable sight that raised our morale and increased our determination to resist was the enthusiastic reception we were greeted by the people in the streets we passed through. The people chanted the slogans which saluted the Protection Units’ resistance.

He added, "Before we arrived, our comrades stopped us in Baflun village near Qestal Jendu and told us that the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries entered the village, so we took our places in Baflun and we divided our group into two parts to move fast and we be able to hide from the drones easily.

Then, we went to Qestal Jendu and managed to reach the outskirts and clashed with several points of the occupation army and mercenaries stationed in the village. After the clashes intensified and we began to move from house to house amid the retreat of the enemy, the Turkish warplanes launched intensive raids on our sites with rockets, and here a number of our comrades were martyred by the shelling and one of them was my companion the fighter Hamza.

Saving his wounded comrades

After the heavy bombardment of the Turkish occupation forces on Qestal Jendu and the destruction of everything, the remaining fighters were forced to retreat, including Khemgin Jiashin and they headed to Dikmdush village, and then, he was sent to the nearby Arab Weran village to support their comrades.

After we arrived in the village and took part in repelling the occupation’s attacks, the Turkish tanks began shelling the village. My other companion and I were close to each other behind a berm. Suddenly, a shell fell on the berm. I lost conscious, and after I recovered it, I watch nothing but smoke and dust rising around me.

I do not know what happened to my other comrade. I felt like I was the only one in that area and the village, I still had a headache, and the shelling was still going on in the village. I slipped into one of the houses in the village near my place to take myself away from the enemy's eyes and the drones. When I entered the house, I found the corpse of one of our comrades lying inside the house.

I went to another room of the house and I was shocked by what I saw. There were 6 female fighters of our comrades, all of them were injured and some of them were no longer able to move.

And we stayed trapped in the house from 18:00 until 22:00. When the night came, a group of our comrades managed to reach us, and transported us with the wounded and the corpse of the martyr to a safe place.

The resistance of Omara village and injury of Khemgin

Khemgin and a group of his companions went to Omara village. As they arrived, the village and its outskirts as well witnessed battles and shelling. As a result of the shelling of the Turkish occupation and the artillery, the occupation army and its mercenaries arrived in the village. The command then asked to form a group to carry out a special operation in Omara village and Khemgin was chosen to be one of this group’s members.

Khemgin said about this operation, "We got prepared for the operation and equipped our weapons and ammunition. We waited until dawn when the fog enveloped the area and the atmosphere was ready for the operation, so we started to move towards the village and reached the entrance of the village. We divided ourselves into three small groups and we entered the village from 3 axes. We targeted several points of the occupation army and its mercenaries, the clashes resulted in killing and wounding many mercenaries and soldiers of the occupation and the rest fled as they got confused because of the sudden operation.

The operation increased our morale, and as the sun rose and the fog settled, the warplanes returned to rain the village with rockets. Some of the fighters were injured and we had to withdraw from the village again.

We moved to Kherab Shera village, and there we repelled the attacks for several days. In this village, I was wounded by the artillery shelling. My comrades took me to Metîna village, where there was a medical point to receive treatment. In Metîna, we were targeted by a Turkish drone and I was wounded by the shrapnel in all parts of my body, and then, I woke up and saw myself in Avrin Hospital in Afrin city.

And then, the first stage of the Resistance of the Age ended, and the second stage started. Khemgin returned to participate in the second stage of the resistance which is still ongoing after he was healed.

At the end of his speech, Khemgin Jiashin said, "We were born on the land of Afrin, and we will die on it. The occupation will not remain in Afrin, no matter how long it takes. We will liberate Afrin and we will not wait for anyone. We promised our martyrs that we will avenge for them."

A.H

ANHA