Ten years after Turkish police officer Fatih Dalgic was killed during the defeated July 15, 2016 coup attempt, his mother says the pain of losing her son remains as intense as it was on the first day.
The July 15, 2016 coup attempt was carried out by a faction within the Turkish Armed Forces linked to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO). The plotters opened fire on civilians and security personnel and bombed state institutions, killing 253 people and wounding thousands.
Asiye Dalgic lives in the central province of Eskisehir, where the family carefully preserves her son’s photographs and personal belongings throughout their home.
Dalgic, the eldest of five siblings, was in Istanbul on annual leave when the coup attempt unfolded.
After receiving a request for help from a colleague, he went to the Cengelkoy Sabanci Police Station on Istanbul’s Asian side, where clashes had broken out.
He was seriously wounded by gunfire from soldiers involved in the coup attempt and later died at a hospital.
“He was very helpful and impatient to act,” his mother told Anadolu. “When one of his friends asked for help, they went there. He went to protect his friend.”
She said the family was initially told that her son had been taken to a hospital with injuries.
“While he was on the stretcher, he told his friends: ‘Nothing will happen to me,’” she said. “But he did not come out of the operation. My son was killed.”
Following the death of his father, Fatih had assumed both the role of older brother and many of the responsibilities of a father within the family, she said.
Asiye Dalgic said she continues to miss her son every day and sometimes sees him in her dreams.
She said she keeps one of his photographs close but cannot carry all of them because the memories are too painful.
