A German teenager has become the first Western female fighter killed in battle alongside Kurdish forces combating Islamic State in Syria.
Ivana Hoffmann, a 19-year-old who said that she was motivated to sign up for the front line “to fight for humanity”, was the third international volunteer fighting Isis to die this year.
Born in Germany to parents believed to come from South Africa, Ms Hoffmann joined the Marxist Leninist Communist party (MKLP) in Turkey before signing up with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units around three months ago.
She was reported to have died defending a barricaded position against a pre-dawn Isis attack on a town in north-eastern Syria near the Turkish border in which “dozens” of assailants were killed on Saturday.
Konstandinos Erik Scurfield, 25, of Royston, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, a former Royal Marine, became the first British fighter killed by Isis in battle alongside the Kurds on March 3.
Advertisement
Ms Hoffmann adopted the nom de guerre of Avashin Tekoshin and left behind two videos in which she pledged to defend the Rojava revolution, a reference to the largest Kurdish-held region of Syria. Rojava means “west” and the area is considered by Kurds as the western sector of a putative greater Kurdistan.
“Behind us is the territory of Daesh [another name for Isis],” said Ms Hoffmann in one video posted on YouTube, where she is shown with her face covered in scarves and brandishing a machine gun with a flat desert scene behind her.
“We have been here for a week. For one week we have been holding our base to defend the Rojava revolution,” she said.
“I decided to come to Rojava because they are fighting for humanity here, for rights and for internationalism that the MLKP represents. We are here as the MLKP to fight for freedom. Rojava is the beginning. Rojava is hope,” she said.
The first foreign national to die fighting for the Kurdish forces against Isis was Ashley Kent Johnston, 28, a former Australian Army reservist who was shot dead on February 24.
Advertisement
The MKLP said in a statement said that Ms Hoffmann died defending the town of Tel Tamr, in a region where residents have been subjected to attacks and abduction raids by Isis fighters.
“Our comrade Avashin had been at the front using her weapons to resist the bloody onslaught of the IS gang against the Assyrian villages in Tel Tamr for days,” the party said.
“During these clashes, dozens of gang members were killed. Our comrade Avashin fought to the last bullet together with the fighters of the YPG [People‘s Protection Units].”
Christof Gramm, head of Germany’s military intelligence agency, said yesterday that about 20 former German soldiers had travelled to the conflict zone. It is not known whether Ms Hoffmann had any military training.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that she was the third foreigner fighting alongside Kurdish forces to be killed in Syria’s four-year-old civil war.
Advertisement
The Observatory estimated that just over 100 western fighters had joined the Kurds in Syria, including British, American, French, Spanish and Dutch fighters.
In contrast, thousands have joined Isis and other Jihadist groups including around 650 from Germany and at least 600 from the UK, more than 30 of whom are believed to have been killed.