Turkish raids in north Iraq displace locals

Dozens of villages have been abandoned and hundreds of families displaced as Turkey goes ahead with a deadly aerial campaign in northern Iraq, officials and locals say.

According to the reports, officials from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region said on Sunday that of the 76 villages of the Barwari sub-district of Dohuk Governorate, which lies along the Turkish border, nearly half have been worst hit by the ongoing Turkish aerial raids.

According to Ismail Mustafa Rashid, the governor of the Amedi district, which includes Barwari, at least 35 villages have either been abandoned or evacuated in recent months.

Some other local officials put the number of the villages affected at 25.

Fawzi Ali, a local farmer, told the Associated Press that Turkish warplanes continue the non-stop bombing of the region. “The aircraft keep coming here continuously. They bomb the mountain; they bomb the edge of the villages.”

“There is nothing here. Nothing except the mountains,” Ali said, adding, “People cannot live here.”

The Turkish airstrikes are declared to be targeting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish militant group.

SS