The remains of a Canadian volunteer killed in north-eastern Syria last week have begun their long journey home.
Kurdish fighters and fellow Canadian volunteer Hanna Bohman carried John Gallagher’s coffin through the streets of a Syrian town on Thursday in a sombre send-off ceremony designed to show their gratitude to the 32-year-old Calgary resident.
“You died fighting against the Islamic State around the area of Hasake,” wrote Jesper Soder, a Swedish volunteer fighter with the Kurdish YPG militia who posted the photos on his Facebook page. “But your action to stand up against terrorism and to fight for freedom is never forgotten!”
Gallagher’s body is expected to be taken to Kurdish controlled areas of northern Iraq from where Canadian officials will help to repatriate him to Canada.
Gallagher, a former infantryman with the 2nd Battalion of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, who had volunteered with Kurdish forces in northern Iraq in May of this year before crossing into Syria in early July, was killed on the morning of Nov. 4.
Initial reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights had suggested that Gallagher was killed in a suicide bombing by an ISIS fighter. However, later reports suggested Gallagher died of a gunshot wound during a battle to retake a village near Hasake [al-Hasakah].
In a long essay posted to his Facebook page on May 6, before he left for the Middle East to join the fight Gallagher explained his reasons for joining the fight against ISIS.
“Like the American Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War, this war is about ideas as much as it is about armies,” Gallagher wrote. “Slavery, fascism, and communism were all bad ideas which required costly sacrifice before they were finally destroyed. In our time, we have a new bad idea: Theocracy.”
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.