The father of slain British YPJ combatant, Anna Campbell, is preparing to take legal action against the Turkish state in order to ensure the safe return of his daughter’s body.

Anna Campbell – also known as Hêlîn Qereçox – was killed by a Turkish airstrike in March 2018, while serving with the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in Afrin, Northern Syria. She was a comrade to many in the anarchist movement and the wider left, and her death was met with a global outpouring of grief and rage.

Since her death, Anna’s body has remained in the Turkish controlled city, well beyond the reach of her family or loved ones. Now, her father, Dirk Campbell, is attempting to raise £25,000 to fund a legal action against the Turkish government to force them to return her body to the UK.

He says that the inaction of both the UK and Turkish governments has left him no choice but to pursue legal redress: “I have not even been accorded the courtesy of a reply to my repeated request to the Turkish embassy in London. My meetings with the Foreign Office have proved fruitless despite promises to ‘do our best’. My MP has done nothing to help.”

In the face of such “a total lack of proactivity”, Mr Campbell has instructed prominent human rights lawyers McCue & Co to begin preparing a case. According to Mr Campbell, the firm’s initial opinion is that, in preventing the repatriation of Anna’s remains, the Turkish government is potentially in violation of international law.

For more information about the Bring Anna Home campaign or to donate to the legal case fundraiser, please visit this website.