PKK rocket attack kills 2 children in Duhok: CTD

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Two children were killed and two adult males were wounded in a Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rocket attack on a village in the Kurdistan Region's Duhok province, the Kurdistan Region's Directorate General of Counter Terrorism (CTD) announced on Thursday.

A security source revealed earlier in the day that there had been casualties and injuries in an "unidentified" attack against the village north of Duhok. Civilians were holding a local celebration when the attack happened.

"The PKK terrorists, on Thursday, fired two rockets at the Ardanay village of Bamarni sub-district in Amedi district north of Duhok province," read the CTD statement.

The PKK has been locked in a decades-long conflict against Ankara over Kurdish rights in Turkey, leading to tens of thousands of deaths on both sides.

Officials from both Iraq and the Kurdistan Region have repeatedly called on Turkey and the militant group to take their fight away from areas civilian-populated areas in the country. Fighting over the years has displaced thousands of villagers in Duhok, depopulated hundreds of villages, and left farmland unusable. Civilians in the area have also been killed and injured by skirmishes and Turkish bombardments against suspected PKK positions.