Renowned Kurdish comedian dies after Tishreen Dam airstrike

19-01-2025
Rudaw
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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Renowned Kurdish comedian Juma Khalil, famously known as Bave Teyar, died on Sunday of injuries he sustained during an airstrike on northern Syria’s Tishreen Dam the day before, Kurdish media reported.

Ronahi TV, affiliated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said that the comedian was among a convoy of civilians at Tishreen Dam protesting against Turkish and Turkish-backed militia attacks.

“I swear by the blood of the martyrs, you cannot break one millimeter of our morale. Our morale is high, as long as we have fighters, our morale is high. Not with your tanks, not with your bombs, you cannot scare us,” Khalil said in a video at the Tishreen Dam protest.

“You see all these people here on their feet, even if you bomb us we will stand against it,” he affirmed.

He was critically injured in an airstrike on Saturday before succumbing to his wounds on Sunday.

Tishreen Dam has been the focus of attacks by Ankara and Turkish-backed militants who call themselves the Syrian National Army (SNA) for the past month.

On Saturday, the SDF said that four civilians were killed and 15 others were injured in the airstrike it blamed on Ankara.

Turkey has yet to comment on the incident.

There are fears the structure could collapse and the Kurdish-led administration of north and east Syria last week appealed to the international community to halt the attacks.

The dam on the Euphrates River provides electricity to much of northeast Syria (Rojava). The SDF took control of the facility from the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2015 with the help of American troops.

International NGOs have also expressed concern over the humanitarian implications of attacks on the dam.

Two separate convoys of civilians going to the dam to protest the attacks have come under attack earlier this month, with several people killed and injured.

 

Updated at 05:05.

 

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