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Thousands of people have joined the funeral procession for Merwan Bedel Xwededa, the co-chair of the Sinjar (Shengal) autonomous administration, who was killed in a Turkish drone strike on Tuesday.
Officials of the autonomous administration, representatives of Yazidi organisations and tribal leaders paraded alongside civilians who came to pay their last respects to Merwan Bedel Xwededa, a legendary figure in the resistance against the attacks of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014.
Fighters of the Ezidxan Women’s Units (YJŞ) and Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ), the forces of self-defence that had emerged during the resistance against ISIS were present in the funeral procession.
Tirej Shengali, the commander of the Sinjar Resistance Units, made a speech at the end of the procession.
“Martyr Merwan Bedel Xwededa had joined the resistance during the farman in defence of the people,” he said.
“He had been struggling for the protection of Shengal and the Yazidis for years. The Yazidi people was his family. His martyrdom once again shows that the only path for the Yazidis is getting organised and setting up their self-defence.”
Earlier in the day a group of outraged civilians, mostly women, including the family of Merwan Bedel Xwededa, protested before an Iraqi police outpost in the town of Sinun, located north of the Mount Sinjar.
They protested at the Baghdad administration’s passiveness in the face of Turkey’s airstrikes that have been ongoing since 2017, and which have killed at least 48 people in Sinjar, the homeland of the Yazidi people.
