14 July 2018•Update: 14 July 2018
By Omer Faruk Yildiz and Mehmet Kara
ANKARA
Foreign students in Turkey who witnessed the defeated coup attempt of July 15, 2016 praised the way Turkish people put their lives on the line to protect their country.
Indonesian student Imam Syafiie, who is studying at Ankara University, told Anadolu Agency that that day he stayed at his dormitory and followed social media to learn what was going on, as he heard helicopters flying overhead.
The Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016 in Turkey, which left 251 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.
That night the public answered a call by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to take to the streets against the coup, often risking their lives to fight armed putschists.
“There was a lot of news around. Some said it was a precaution against terrorists or military exercises, while others said it was a coup attempt,” Imam said, adding that he found out the incident was actually a coup attempt after watching then-Premier Binali Yildirim's remarks on television.
“Helicopters and F-16s started flying over us around 11 p.m. Then I saw police headquarters on fire,” he said, adding that he was able to see the building from his dorm window in Ulus, one of Ankara’s older districts.
“It was like a warzone. I was so worried,” he added.
He said the streets were full of people responding to Erdogan’s call, praising the Turkish people as brave.
“I really congratulate the Turkish people for protecting their country,” he said.
'We felt the spirit of Canakkale'
Fredinant Hasmuca, an Albanian theology student at Ankara University who came to Turkey 10 years ago, said that day they were returning from a trip to Canakkale, sacred ground in the history of the Turkish nation.
The Battle of Canakkale, which took place in the Gelibolu (Gallipoli) district in 1915, marked a turnaround in favor of the Turks against the Allied forces.
Hasmuca said they felt courage rather than fear during the coup attempt, which they learned was happening from social media.
“We started to ask ourselves, ‘Will we be able to return, or will we stay here?’ But when we heard the calls from the mosques, we found the courage inside ourselves,” he said.
All across Turkey the night of the coup attempt, mosques also rallied people’s spirits with calls from the minarets.
Hasmuca said after hearing the call, he felt the Canakkale spirit within himself and added: “The tombstones of people who lost their lives in Canakkale didn’t have their names, but the city they came from. Such as [the Albanian cities of] Berat, Elbasan and Shkodra.
“So we thought about if we could have Tirana [Albania’s capital] written on our tombstones too.”
With those feelings, they headed to the center of Ankara to support the Turkish people, who he said showed solidarity to beat back the bloody attempt as a nation, regardless of their political views.
