Turkish bombardment wounds shepherd in Zakho district

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdish shepherd in Duhok province’s Zakho district was wounded Tuesday by Turkish bombardment in the area, a local official told Kurdistan 24.

Ramazan Ali Abdulrahman was injured while tending to his flock in Hiror village early Tuesday, Sarbast Sabri, the head of Kani Masi sub-district told Kurdistan 24 on Tuesday. The 60-year-old was transferred to the district’s emergency hospital for treatment for a leg injury, according to Sabri. 

Ongoing Turkish military operations against its long-standing enemy, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, have increasingly spilled into the autonomous Kurdistan Region’s border towns and rural areas, endangering civilians and their economic lifelines.

The Christian-majority Chalke village in the Zakho district was evacuated Saturday as the result of the conflict, and many other villages in the area have been turned into a battleground. Two young shepherds were injured by a Turkish airstrike in Behere village in the Zakho district last week, one of them critically.

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) consistently asks both sides to take their fight away from the Kurdish region as Iraq, as it victimizes the civilian population and damages the environment. 

Editing by Joanne Stocker-Kelly