BBC: Kurds demand unity amid battle against Islamic State
"She was a martyr of #Kurdistan," wails this man at the funeral of his 24-year-old niece, Gulsum. She was killed three days ago while fighting as part of the #PKK-linked forces in #Kobani. Although she was a #Kurdfrom #Turkey, she trained with #PKK guerrilla in the #Qandil mountains of Iraqi #Kurdistan, and died fighting in a #Kurdish city in #Syria. Her family makes no distinction among the three regions. "Kurdish fighters from all parts of Kurdistan went to Kobani," her father told me. "This means that the #Kurds are coming together." Photo by Cale Salih
Kurds demand unity amid battle against Islamic State
By Cale Salih - Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations
Outside the morgue at Diyarbakir cemetery in eastern Turkey, Hanifi Cam waits for the body of his 24-year-old daughter, Gulsum, to be draped in Kurdish nationalist red, yellow and green.
Gulsum was a Kurd from Turkey, but she trained with militants from the Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) in the Qandil Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, and died in combat in Kobane, a Kurdish-run town in Syria.
As the bodies of Kurdish children killed in Syria or Iraq come home for burial in Turkey, feelings of cross-border Kurdish solidarity are growing in their communities, despite the deeply divided nature of the Kurdish nationalist movement.
Gulsum's family makes no distinction between the three separate regions. "Kurdish fighters from all parts of Kurdistan went to Kobane," her father said. "This means that the Kurds are coming together."
Funerals for PKK fighters killed abroad are becoming more commonplace in this part of Turkey.
In recent months, the PKK and its Syrian sister group, the YPG, have emerged among the most prominent and effective forces against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.
The coffin emerges, hoisted by several women, and the large crowd begins chanting in Kurdish, "Martyrs never die". The women carry the body into a hearse, and the funeral convoy starts driving toward Akbas, the village where Gulsum grew up and where she will be buried.