Turkish artillery strikes villages in Kurdistan Region; civilians evacuate
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Turkish military has been firing large numbers of artillery shells into areas within the neighboring Kurdistan Region for the past two days, causing distress and panic among local villagers and significant damage to their property, said the commander of border guards in Duhok province on Wednesday night.
Commander Dler Zebari told local media that Turkey near continual bombardment in recent years has ultimately “caused the evacuation of more than 400 villages within Duhok provincial borders.”
He added, “In the last two days the bombing has been intensifying from the district of Zakho on the border until Amedi district, on the pretext of going after the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in those territories, causing major damage to the resident’s properties and preventing them from working and going outside out of fear for their lives."
The PKK is engaged in a decades-long insurgency against Turkey over Kurdish rights and self-rule in a conflict that has resulted in the death of over 40,000 people on both sides.
Zebari also explained that PKK fighters do sometimes enter villages along the border, attracting the Turkish fire along with them and thus putting the lives of civilians at risk.
Sarbast Akrawi, head of the Kani Massi subdistrict outside Zakho, told local media outlet Shafaq News, "The power line that supplies four villages were cut off last night due to the bombing, and that district administration, in cooperation with the Electricity Department, repaired the wires and pillars on Wednesday morning.”
"The village of Kaseta, in the west of the district, was severely damaged, as the extensive shelling landed too close to the homes of its residents, breaking windows and doors in some of the homes and causing a state of panic among the villagers."
Ankara, along with Washington and NATO, designates the PKK as a terrorist organization. The group is thought to have fighters near hundreds of villages inside the Kurdistan Region, mainly in the mountainous areas near the Turkish and Iranian borders.
In the past decade, Turkey has regularly shelled areas inside the Kurdistan Region, but operations this year have intensified and widened in terms of scope and territory covered. In some areas, Turkish forces have mobilized as far as 30 kilometres deep inside the autonomous region’s border.
As civilians, agriculture, trade, and the local environment continue to suffer from the clashes, residents and Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) officials have repeatedly asked the PKK and the Turkish government to take their fight elsewhere.
In April, the Iraqi foreign minister summoned the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad and delivered him a memorandum of protest against airstrikes Ankara conducted earlier that week against alleged PKK positions in the Kurdistan Region and a refugee camp in the disputed city of Makhmour.
Read More: Baghdad summons Turkish ambassador over airstrikes within Iraqi airspace
“The ministry condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the attack carried out by the Turkish side which resulted in the loss of life and property damage," said Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ahmed Sahaf.
A statement Thursday by Iraq's Joint Operations Command, which coordinated national military and police forces, read, "We deplore the violation of Iraqi airspace by Turkish fighter jets, which took place on Wednesday morning and targeted a refugee camp near Makhmour."
It added, "This provocative behaviour is inconsistent with the principles of good neighbourliness in accordance with the international agreements, and is a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty," stressing "the need to stop these violations in respect of and commitment to the common interests between the two countries."
Editing by John J. Catherine