Listen here to the daily update:
Dear friends, sister and comrades,
Today is the 16th February and this is our daily update from Rojava, from the heart of the women’s revolution, where right now life is being defended.
The situation here stays tensed and unstable. Kobane is still under siege while the implementation of the agreement of the 29. of January continues and strong demands for the Syrian Transitional Government to stick to the agreement are being made.
Within the agreement, the clauses related to displaced persons is considered among the most significant and complex points, as no extensive deliberations or concrete steps have yet taken place concerning them. However, the issue of displaced persons has entered the agenda in recent days.
More than 300,000 displaced people from Afrin, al-Shahba, and Aleppo, who were forced to leave their homes three times due to attacks, along with 150,000 displaced from Serekaniye and Girê Spi are awaiting safe return.
According to the agreement, the return must take place safely, and an internal security system must be established in their home cities.
A father of a family of 9, arrived in Qamislo from Raqqa in the last days. after a long journey, in which they had been shot at, two of his sons became wounded and their neighbour killed. She was holding her 5 month old baby in her arms when she died. the father says:
“We have nothing left. We need all kinds of assistance. Some aid has reached us, but since we arrived in Qamishlo with only the clothes we were wearing, we require more support. We want to return to Afrin, but we will not return as long as the mercenaries of the Turkish state remain there. We will not go back until we are one hundred percent certain they have left.”
Like this family, many have experienced multiple displacements, from Afrin, to Shehba, to Aleppo, Raqqa or Tabqa and now again. These displacements have left deep scars and the need to return to their home and recover, together with their land, from these 8 years of violent occupation, is huge.
But, as the father says, the land is still occupied by the mercenaries of the Turkish state and a safe return is not at all given right now.
All over Syria instability and violence is spreading. This is also proven by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, who documented a significant escalation in violence and casualties during the first 15 days of February, recording the deaths of 115 people in various parts of Syria.
We know, that war brings the rise of patriarchal mentality and violence and we also know, that these violence hits women the strongest. This number is just the tip of the iceberg, underneath lies the silence of the rise of violence against women, with the jihadist patriarchal mentality being strengthened by the Syrian transitional government and its wars, which are supported by the international forces.
In Deir ez-Zor, a place that was a few weeks ago still under the responsibility of the self administration, the Syrian transitional government ignited fires in multiple civilian-run oil refineries. During the ongoing fuel shortage and declining services in the region, this led to anger in the society. Fuel is not just needed for cars, but also for heating, agricultural production and water supply, as also the wells are often run with fuel.
Despite this, or in fact, in defiance of the current situation, the schools of Rojava started in their second-semester today. Life is going on, and children and teacher are returning to their schools.
Many children have experienced another war in their life in these last weeks, most of them lost a family member in these last years, in which nearly every winter came with a war.
Going to schools means developing a future. And for these children it is clear, that for creating a future it is important to learn, because for the future that they are dreaming of, transformation and change is needed.
This promise for life, was also stated by the World Women’s Conference in Columbia, Bogota, which took place in the last days and brought together women’s struggle of the whole word – from Kurdistan to Abya Yala – under the slogan: “We will flourish because war cannot uproot us”. Also a delegation from Rojava attended. The concluding statement emphasized that the concept of democratic confederalism, which originated in Kurdistan, strengthens women’s presence and opens new horizons for struggle, noting that a network group would follow up on the discussions and maintain coordination among the participants.
Another delegation from Rojava, with Mazlum Abdi, the general commander of SDF and Ilham Ahmed, Co-chair of the Self-administration, travelled to the safety council in Munich the last days and took part in multiple talks about the safety situation of Syria and the middle east.
For the recognition of the self-Administration this is a big step.
To bring the values of the Rojava Revolution, to a conference like this, can have an impact, together with the mass demonstrations that happened outside of the conference rightfully questioning: If this conference and its actors truly bring security to the world?
In an interview Mazlum Abdi confirmed again, that the role of women in the security structures is non-negotiable, saying: “Women’s strength is our red line, every brigade must have a women’s unit.”
Coming to an end of todays message, we want to share something with you about the resistance of the womens self-defence forces. We often said that this war is an ideological war and that it is important to understand the role of women in it.
When YPJ, the autonomous women’s units, were born as an organization and women of this region first took part of the arm struggle, both male friend and the enemy where doubting of their strength. Some men had difficulties accepting women as commanders, but when they saw the way they were leaders, they understood the different colour that women put in the struggle as well in life and starting to accept, respect and love them also as fighters and commanders.
The enemy, from Turkey to ISIS, of course have a different ideology about the value of life and of women. They are dominant and violent, but in reality there are very scared of the women. When they hear for the first time the tililî of the women fighter they remain in silence.
The tililî is a traditional sound of women in the Middle East, to express strength or joy and to give energy to the moment. Why in a desperate and violent war women where shouting the tililî? Because that’s the strength of them: if you know what are you fighting for, if you know what you are defending, you can do it with joy and strength and this will be fatal for the enemy.
For the jihadist mentality, for example, being killed by a woman is believed to mean “not reaching paradise”. As in the historical case of the Amazons, women were seen as a force that disrupts the established order.
The history is full of these examples of distorted narratives about women that make them appear as devil when the rise up against a reality that is not according to the values of life.
But women knows their history, our bodies have memory because women are a nation, the first democratic nation. and as people can not exist without collective memory, so do we: our hair has memory, our voices and shouting in the battles have memory, our existence is never only in the present, but is truly radiating in our history.
With this consciousness and historical responsibility, women and women fighter are still today resisting in Kobane until Abya Yala, knowing that their voices full of energy are the biggest weapon against the mentality of death of the enemy.
Dear friends, we hope you can hear the Tilili from here until to your lands and that it gives also strength to you!
With revolutionary greetings from Rojava,
16. February 2026
