Funeral for slain Turkish American Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi draws hundreds

Hundreds of people waving Turkish and Palestinian flags gathered on Saturday for the funeral of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish American activist killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Cevdet Yılmaz, Turkey’s vice-president; Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister; Numan Kurtulmuş, the parliament speaker; and Özgür Özel, the main opposition leader from the Republican People’s party (CHP) were among mourners at the ceremony in the Turkish Aegean coastal city of Didim.

A guard of honour carried the 26-year-old’s coffin, which was draped with a Turkish flag.

“The blood of Ayşenur Eygi is as sacred as that of every Palestinian martyred, and we will follow it until the end. As the Turkish nation, we are fully committed. As a state, we are fully committed,” Kurtulmuş told reporters.

Eygi was killed on 6 September as she took part in a protest against settlement expansion in the West Bank.

Israel has acknowledged that its troops shot the activist, but says it was an unintentional act during a demonstration that turned violent.

“She was directly targeted and shot behind her left ear. May God have mercy on her, and may her soul rest in paradise,” Kurtulmuş said.

Ankara said it will request international arrest warrants for those to blame for what it calls an intentional killing.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris released statements on Wednesday after previously being criticised by the family for not calling to offer condolences. In Wednesday’s statement, the US president called the killing of Eygi “totally unacceptable” and called for full accountability. “Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again,” Biden said.

The vice-president echoed Biden’s words, calling the killing “a horrible tragedy that never should have happened”.

The White House has still not called for an independent investigation in to Eygi’s killing.

In response to Wednesday’s statement, Hamid Ali, Eygi’s partner, said that Biden had not directly contacted the family and renewed calls for an independent inquiry in the case. “The White House has not spoken with us,” he said in the statement. “For four days, we have waited for President Biden to pick up the phone and do the right thing: to call us, offer his condolences and let us know that he is ordering an independent investigation of the killing of Ayşenur.”

Kurtulmuş said Turkey would “ensure this case is pursued until the end”.

“We will hold them accountable in all international courts. Yesterday, we completed all autopsies in accordance with international standards,” he said.

Prayers were held for Eygi in various Turkish cities, including Istanbul and Ankara.

Reuters contributed to this report