Mesut Yağan couldn’t stay unresponsive to the call of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and went into the streets with his brother and father. Yağan was martyred in front of the General Staff Headquarters. His wife Tuğçe Yağan was trying to protect seized putschist soldiers by talking to the police, when Mesut was shot by putschists.
Mesut provided for his three children by working as a driver. He had a 7 year old daughter named Evrim and two sons, Kerim age 2 and Metin age 3. He had been married to Tuğçe for 8 years. On the night of the 15th he and his family headed to the General Staff Headquarters upon the call of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. They passed the first tank with no trouble and arrived upon the second tank. Tuğçe saw that the police had seized putschist soldiers from the tank and she tried convincing them not to hurt the soldiers. At the same time, Mesut had climbed onto the tank and tried to convince the other putschist soldiers to surrender. As the struggle continued, Mesut was shot by the soldiers in front of his wife and started losing blood quickly. Tuğçe, who was trying to stop the cars from passing by, headed to the hospital with his husband’s brother. She tried to do CPR on her husband but was not able to save him because his lungs were severely damaged.
Tuğçe stated that they kept asking his name to her husband to keep him conscious, her husband kept responding with, “Metin Evrim” which is the name of his son. Tuğçe was beside her husband when he breathed his last breath, she said, “I was next to him. He closed his eyes to never open them again.”
32 year old Martyr Mesut Yağan was buried in Ankara on Sunday, July 17th.