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At around midday on 19 July, Koray Türkay boarded a bus in Istanbul and set off for the Syrian border He was among a group of about 200 people going to help rebuild the devastated town of Kobani, whose Kurdish defenders had defied a four-month siege by the so-called ‘Islamic State’   The volunteers had been drawn together through a media campaign ‘Together we supported it, together we’ll rebuild it,’ was the slogan of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations Those who signed up were mainly young, and almost all leftists; most were strangers meeting for the first time Despite the sixteen-hour overnight journey, there was a buzz of excitement when the group arrived for breakfast at a cultural centre in the border town of Suruç the following morning They had brought books, clothing, toys for children, all paid for out of their own pockets Their plan was to plant trees, start a library, and build a playground Türkay, a bespectacled gymnastics teacher with close-cropped hair and a goatee, was to conduct gym sessions with Kobani’s children At 40, he was older than most of the others and had come alone, but felt in good company The group prepared breakfast with food they provided themselves – cheese, bread, melons, olives – sharing and clearing the meal in an atmosphere of quiet industriousness and anticipation   After breakfast, he and the other volunteers posed for a group photo behind a large banner, waving the socialist youth group’s red-starred flag, and listening to speeches by the organisers Türkay went to the front to take pictures on his phone Somewhere on the right in the background of his images is the blurry figure of a young man who was carrying a pack of explosives Another video shows the moment he detonated his device: a snap of light like the sudden striking of a match, and the packed crowd simply evaporates   Two weeks later, speaking in a hoarse whisper from his hospital bed, a white sheet covering his shattered limbs, Türkay told me what set him on the road towards Suruç It was something that had begun years