News Center-Carina Cuanna, a 23-year-old Dutch woman studying Anthropology at Leiden University loved Türkiye.

In 1992, Carina Cuanna, together with her classmate Maryze Schoneveld Van Der Linde, went on a separate tour in Türkiye. Then, they decided to stay in Türkiye to write their theses. Carina Cuanna’s thesis was about “The Role of Women in Turkish Society”. She began to live in Ankara on June 22, 1993. There, she met two Alevi women named Yasemin and Asuman and they became friends. Her two new friends were teachers of semah, an Alevi ritual, at the Pir Sultan Abdal Cultural Association.

She wrote the moments of the attack in her diary

When Carina learned that Asuman would attend the 4th annual Pir Sultan Abdal celebration in Sivas, she decided to go to Sivas with her. Carina Cuanna was keeping diaries. “Now, we are sitting in a ‘closed’ hotel, because a group of fundamentalists are wandering around outside,” she wrote in her diary before scary moments in Sivas.

“…Now, everything is going badly. We have been sitting in the hotel for a long time. A group of fundamentalists (far-right) is shouting and screaming outside. They claim that writer and humorist Aziz Nesin is hidden in this building. They accuse him of publishing ‘The Satanic Verses’. These are all unpleasant things. I feel like I am in a very difficult and troubled situation, because I cannot even imagine what will happen here. Eventually, I learned that this city is home to a society of Turkish fundamentalists. They are chanting many slogans. There are also a lot of police.”

Last words of Carina

Carina Cuanna was one of 37 people, who were burned alive at the Hotel Madımak in Sivas on July 2,1993. Her last words in her diary were: “But I do not understand what is going on… People are shouting outside but I do not understand what is going on…….”

The “Madimak: Carina's Diary” documentary was released in 2015. The documentary written and directed by Ulaş Bahadır starred Denise Ankel, Füsun Demirel, Rıza Akın, Altan Erkekli, Mustafa Alabora and Erdal Tosun. We recommend you watch the documentary not to forget the massacre.