Politics & News

At least three killed in a Turkish air attack on a refugee camp in Iraq

According to Rashad Kalali, a Kurdistan Party leader in Iraq, a Turkish airstrike killed at least three people in a refugee camp in the north of the country on Saturday.

The bombing came three days after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan threatened Iraq that Turkey would clear a refugee camp claimed as a shelter for Kurdish extremists.

An Iraqi security official confirmed that an airstrike had resulted in deaths and injuries in the camp but did not provide details.

Over the last year, Turkish soldiers have increased their operations on banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq, focusing their firing and incursions up to 30km within Iraq.

Erdogan said on Thursday that Makhmour camp, which is located 180km south of the Turkish border and has been hosting thousands of Turkish refugees for more than 20 years, is an incubator for militants.

Thousands of Kurds crossed the border from Turkey in the 1990s, prompting Ankara to accuse the Kurdistan Workers Party of purposely initiating the crossing (PKK).

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States, has been at war with the state in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority southeast region since 1984. Over 40,000 individuals have died as a result of the violence.

“They are murdering women and children who are innocent. Turkey wishes to occupy Kurdistan, but we Kurds and the PKK will fight till the end of time,” Omid Salih, a protester, said.

In a separate incident, the Ministry of Peshmerga said that five Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga fighters were killed and four wounded in an ambush by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq. He called on the Iraqi federal government to take immediate action to stop the ongoing Turkish military operations in the Kurdistan region and demanded the PKK to move its fight to another place away from the homes of the Kurds and the Kurdistan region.

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