21-year-old woman was raped by Turkish soldier at Syrian border

A woman claimed she was raped by a Turkish soldier as she attempted to cross into Turkey from Syria. While the woman’s father was tortured soldiers, prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation on the incident.

Speaking to Sputnik News, the 21-year-old woman from Palestine, with initials L.B., filed a criminal complaint saying that a soldier affiliated to Turkish Armed Forces raped her as she crossed the Syria-Turkey border  alongside her father and brother near Güveççi village of Hatay’s Yayladağ district on August 22.

While the woman’s father and brother were on the other hand tortured by soldiers, the three were sent back to Syria the same day. The family came to Turkey one day later and filed a criminal complaint on the incident, upon which Yayladağ Public Prosecutor’s Office started an investigation.

The woman who is currently staying with her relatives in Hatay, together with her father and brother, told that she was mentally depressed and couldn’t even go out since the incident, and demanded the trial of the rapist soldier to “not allow the same thing to happen to some others”.

The young woman’s father, A.B., told the followings in his testimony to the public prosecutor; “I wanted to flee the war environment in Syria and cross into Turkey with my children. Soon after we crossed the border near Güveççi village, a Turkish soldier guarding the border suddenly shouted at us and started to battered me. I begged her to leave us because of my daughter being near us. As he continued battering me, I became dazed and we fell into the trench at the border. Then he also came down into the trench and punched me. I felt fainted. I just remember my daughter’s hand leaving my hand. When I came to myself, there was nobody near me. I went out of the trench and started to walk. Then I saw an armored vehicle of the Turkish army and three soldiers other than the one I had seen earlier. They got me on the ground, stripped me off and searched my body. They later indicated me to take my stuff and rolled me towards the valley in the Syrian side. At around 02:30, I heard someone calling me, who was the person meant to help us cross the border. He took me near my son and daughter who told me there that she had been assaulted and raped by a Turkish soldier. I demand the trial of those who did this to me and my daughter.”