Hitting the streets to resist the coup after hearing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s call, Cuma Dağ told his wife who ran after him on the night of July 15th that he wanted to become a martyr. He drew his last breath and became a martyr with the red flag on his back. Known as ‘Decapitated martyr of the complex,’ and referred to many times by Erdoğan, including at Yenikapı Public Meeting, he was the person who was decapitated after the shootings fired by the putschists from a helicopter, in front of the Presidential Complex.
“I saw someone decapitated in front of a tank...”
Cuma was a 49-year-old geological engineer, originally from Elazığ. His wife went out on the night of July 15th leaving their 6-year-old son to a relative. Running out on to the streets yelling, “Our country and our president needs us,” Cuma said to his wife, “Rukiye, I am going out, I hope I will become a martyr like my friends.” Losing sight of her husband in the meantime, Rukiye said that everyone dispersed because of the subsequent air strike. And she talked about that night as follows, “A helicopter came up. While they were spraying bullets, a boisterous bomb was dropped suddenly around 01:00. I searched for my husband amongst the casualties. I proceeded through corpses. Eventually, I saw someone decapitated right in front of a tank. ‘What have they done to this poor man?’ I said. After I recovered from the shock, I started examining the man. His socks, his pants, his shoes... I looked closer. I checked his phone and my number was in his last calls, it was my husband... I held his hand and said, ‘Renounce your rights for me in this, my dear.’ Ignoring ongoing hail of bullets, I sat beside him, held his hands, and caressed his chest. Police took me away from him, I couldn’t take my husband with me.”
“I am proud”
Cuma’s father Ahmet noted that he had lost two children, one to cancer and the other to a heart attack, and that he was sad and proud at the same time for giving Cuma to the country as a martyr. Expressing that most fathers cannot achieve such honor, Dağ said, “I am a martyr’s father, I am proud of my son. My son became a martyr. He is my blood after all; apart from my grief, I am happy. My son went out for the state, nation and honor, and he became a martyr.”
The name Martyr Cuma Dağ was given to two imam hatip middle schools in Kütahya and his hometown Elazığ.
