Prague, Feb 17 (CTK) – Czech student Marketa Vselichova plans to leave for Kurdistan to offer help to Kurds in the areas they have reconquered from Islamic State in Syria, document the iniquities they face in Turkey and possibly also witness anti-IS battles in Iraq, Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) wrote on Wednesday.
Vselichova, a tiny 23-year-old girl, studies at the Life Sciences University (CZU) in Prague.
In her cell phone, she has a photo of the remains of an IS jihadist. She made the snap in northern Syria, where the jihadist was killed by the Kurds who currently control the region.
Vselichova visited the fresh reconquered area in northern Syria in December, and she wants to return there soon.
“I will spend most of my earnings on my journey to Rojava and aid to the local people,” she told MfD.
Around her neck, Vselichova wears a pendant in the colours of the Kurdish flag and shaped as Kurdistan, a non-existing state that millions of people would like to be established in the border area between Syria, Turkey and Iraq.
At the end of February, she plans to set out for Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where she would seek a permit to cross the border to the Syrian region of Rojava.
“Some time ago, I met several members of the local government who promised to help me,” Vselichova said.
She hopes the contacts with the members of the Kurdish government in Iraq will also help her visit the Iraqi front where jihadists are being fought.
After gaining the necessary documents in Erbil, she will return to the Czech Republic to complete, together with her four friends, their preparations for a journey to Syrian Kurdistan.
She said they will go to Syria by car, which is more practical. In addition, while crossing Turkey, she would like to document the crimes the Turkish military commits in relation to local Kurds, she said.
“These developments have been quite underestimated by reporters,” she said.
Her group plans to spend about three weeks in Rojava.
They have applied for the Czech registration of a new NGO, Victims of War Aid, which would enable them to launch a public fund-raising campaign in support of Rojava inhabitants.
They want to help people in the region where most villages have been destroyed by war. “The people live amid ruins there,” Vselichova said.
She and her friends will first find out what the locals need and then they will go to big towns to buy the items.
Items such as stoves, water, food, clothes were the most-sought by Syrian Kurds during her previous visit to the area.
Vselichova dismisses that her plan may be risky.
“I know where I’m going and what groups there are in the area,” Vselichova said.
She will have no local guide in Kurdistan.
“The larger the service you use is, the more conspicuous you are,” she told MfD.
