HPG Commander Egid Civyan was commemorated in Northern Kurdistan, Makhmur and Sinjar. In 2014, he led the first guerrilla resistance operation against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Sinjar and thus made a decisive contribution to saving 150,000 Yazidis (Êzidis) from genocide. Although the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had announced that its peshmerga forces would protect the Yazidis (Êzidis) living there, the peshmerga withdrew from the area.

People’s Defence Forces (HPG) were the first to arrive in the mountainous areas of Sinjar to protect the fleeing Yazidis (Êzidis). Nine HPG fighters led the resistance and organized the Yazidis (Êzidis) to protect themselves. Egid Civyan was one of these nine guerrillas. Egîd Civyan (Vahdettin Karay) was a member of the HPG Command Council and Commander of the Botan region. He was killed on 11 September.

He lost his life alongside two other guerrillas, Hebun and Canfeda, in a clash with Turkish military forces in Çatak district of Van province in Turkey.