Over 200 from Germany fought with PYD, YPG in Middle East since 2013: German ministry
More than 200 people have
left Germany since 2013 to take up arms with the Democratic Union Party (PYD)
and its armed wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), on the battlefields of
Syria and Iraq, the German Interior Ministry has said, adding that 69 of
them were German passport holders.
Figures released by the ministry do not include any who might
have joined the Kurdish Peshmerga in northern Iraq. The figures emerged in the German media on April following a parliamentary
question put by the opposition Left Party.
Two German citizens were reported to have been killed in
the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), as Germany
reportedly had no immediate report about the death of one German citizen.
Of the volunteer militants who left since 2013, 102 have
since returned to Germany, including 43 German citizens. Some 12 of them who returned to
Germany were also reportedly Turkish citizens.
The ministry's report also revealed that one Polish citizen,
one Iraqi and one Belgian citizen returned to Germany. Some 16 of them who
returned to the country had fought with the YPG, according to the ministry.
Meanwhile, Left Party parliamentarian Ulla Jelpke expressed
criticism to the German government over the figures on her official
website.
“Foreign volunteers who fought alongside the YPG and its
allies against ISIL should be welcomed as brave fighters; they should not be
criminalized and disgraced,” she said.
Jelpke also recalled the death of German citizen Anton Lescheck, 24, who was allegedly
killed in Syria's Manbij due to Turkish air strikes on November 2016, stating
that the German government and the federal prosecution were
avoiding launching an investigation into the death of the citizen.
She accused the federal government of being under the control
of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
The federal government said the cause of the German citizen's death was unknown, adding that there
was no reason to approach the Turkish government in such a manner.