Supporters of Hamburg’s St Pauli football club unfurled a banner reading “Defend Rojava – End Erdoğan’s war” at home on Saturday evening, their first match of the year, to draw attention to the ongoing attacks of the Turkish-backed mercenaries of the Syrian National Army (SNA) against northeast Syria, instigated by Turkey.
Supporters of Hamburg’s St Pauli football team unfurl a banner reading “Defend Rojava – End Erdogan’s war” at a home match in 11 January.
The first German Bundesliga football match of 2025 was played at the Millerntor stadium in Hamburg, Germany, between the home team St Pauli and Eintracht Frankfurt. During the match, St Pauli fans unfurled a banner with the slogan “Defend Rojava – End Erdoğan’s war”. They also waved the flags of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), and some fans raised pictures of YPJ fighters.
The supporters aim was to draw attention to the attacks on northeast Syria of the Turkish state and Turkish-backed SNA mercenaries. The banner called for an immediate end to these attacks.
Turkey plays a prominent role in the attacks in northern Syria. Turkish drones and planes bomb civilians living in the area of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) on a daily basis. A Turkish drone attack was responsible for the death of two prominent Kurdish journalists, Nazım Daştan and Cîhan Bîlgîn, on 19 December. In recent years and months, the Turkish state has also intensively attacked civilian infrastructure including the Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates. Furthermore, Turkey supports the SNA financially as well as supplying it with weapons, another destabilising factor in the region, thus also bearing responsibility for rapes and violence committed by SNA mercenaries against civilians in Syria.
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