As Türkiye prepares to commemorate the people who lost their lives during the failed coup attempt of July 15, 2016, the families of the martyrs continue carrying the hurt and their memories.
In October 2016, over a month after the attempted coup, July 15 was designated as Democracy and National Unity Day, with events held nationwide every year since then to commemorate those who lost their lives beating back the putschists and to remember the bravery of the nation.
The Gülenist Terror Group (FETÖ) and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gülen orchestrated the defeated coup, which left 251 people dead.
Ankara also accuses FETÖ of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.
The attempt by FETÖ to overthrow the government began around 10 p.m. local time (7 p.m. GMT) on July 15, 2016, and was thwarted by 8 p.m. the next day.
Standing against the threat, the Turkish people courageously showed the world that they would not tolerate any attempt to suppress their will as expressed through their democratically elected government.
Two mothers who buried their children killed on the night of July 15 spoke to the Turkish newspaper Sabah of lost odds and destroyed dreams.
For one mother, Müfide Akıncı, whose 30-year-old son was shot in front of the military command building in the capital Ankara that night, her son’s demise was almost a premonition, preceded months ahead by nightmares and “a fire in my heart.”
When Suat Akıncı dropped by their home around noon that Friday, Mrs. Akıncı was adamant that he should not go out because she “felt it.”
“He came home for Friday prayers and we were chatting in front of the mirror as he joked about having gained weight. Little did I know it would be the last conversation we would have,” Akıncı recalled.
“That evening we were even chatting about how our village in our hometown had never received a martyr until then,” she told Sabah.
When the coup attempt began around 10 p.m., Akıncı’s son returned home from work to see whether his siblings had made it back. Akıncı pleaded with him not to go out if the streets were “going crazy.”
“Suat first waited at the door but then he couldn’t stand it. He said he would go. I begged him not to, warned him something would happen to him and he shrugged it off. ‘It’s not like they would kill me,’ he said.”
When he ran out of the door to join his friends, Suat was “overjoyed,” Akıncı said, “as if he knew he was running towards his martyrdom.”
The next morning, hours after they last saw him, Suat’s father mused that maybe their son had been martyred during the chaotic struggle.
“I was furious that he would even think of such a thing but perhaps he too felt it,” Akıncı said.
When they saw their son’s body later, Akıncı recalled his eyes were open but there was “almost a smile on his face, like he had been happy.”
Akıncı said she still heard her son’s voice every night and watched for his shadow.
“We were going to get my son married after Eid (that year). I had wanted him to get married before I could pass away but now it’s my son that has passed away. He had so many dreams. Our martyrs died for this nation,” she said.
For another mother, Satı Kaşaltı, the devastation that followed her son’s death was much bigger as grief claimed her husband, her younger son and unborn grandchild soon after.
“My son was an angel when he lived and now he’s a real angel, resting in the place he deserves to be in,” Kaşaltı told Sabah.
The last Kaşaltı heard from her son Köksal, a police officer dispatched to the gates of the Presidential Complex in Ankara, was via a text message around 5 a.m. on July 16, when the struggle was at its peak.
Köksal reported his well-being to his mother and wife, two months pregnant at the time, all night long before he was shot and killed.
“They stole our dreams, my son’s youth,” Kaşaltı said.
Afterward, Köksal’s wife lost their baby and a little while later his father and younger brother succumbed to grief.
“They ruined us. I live every day with yearning and indescribable pain. The fire in my heart grows every day,” she said.
“I despise the arrival of July every year for I cannot stand this pain. May God damn those putschists who took my son from me.”
Describing July 15 as “the war between traitors and patriots,” Kaşaltı said. “Thank God we came out victorious. In return, our children lay down their lives. It’s an unbearable pain but I hold my head high when I think of how proud I am. This waving flag, which holds my son’s spilled blood, honors me.”
