Kurdish New YearSpring equinox and Kurdish New Year: the bonfires, symbolizing the liberation of the Kurdish people, had started appearing on the area’s 100 mountains starting from the day before. Many of the young women who were fighting for the cause would finally go back to their hometowns for one day and wear their finest clothes, eat their traditional dishes, and sing and dance along to the violins late into the night.
That afternoon Beyan invited Alessandra to go with her and other two women, one of whom came from a town about twenty-five kilometers from Kobane, where they were expected for the celebrations.
Captain Goran had given them permission to take the pick-up truck; it was almost sundown when the four women, all of them armed except for Alessandra, set off for their destina
