ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A fire broke out on Mount Matina in Duhok province following clashes between the Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a villager said on Wednesday, with the blaze yet to be brought under control.
“The fire broke out yesterday and has not been brought under control. Hundreds of trees in the forests and farmlands of citizens in the villages have been burned,” Nizar Sargale, a village chieftain (mukhtar), told Rudaw’s Nasir Ali.
The mountainous terrain of the area greatly complicates efforts to extinguish the fire, according to Sargale. Residents of neighboring villages are scrambling to extinguish the fire because civil defense teams cannot readily reach these areas,
Turkey has recently increased its military intervention to curb threats from the PKK along its border with the Kurdistan Region. The airstrikes and artillery fire frequently spark fires, especially during the hot, dry summer months.
The PKK is a Kurdish group that has waged an armed insurgency against the Turkish state for decades in the struggle for greater Kurdish rights and is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara.
Turkey’s Claw-Lock operation was launched in northern Duhok province in April 2022, with the goal of targeting PKK positions in Metina, Zap, Avashin, and Basyan areas. Ankara at the time said the goal of the operation is to remove the PKK from the border areas and cut off its access to mainland Turkey.
Turkey has carried out over 800 attacks on the Kurdistan Region and Nineveh province so far in 2024, according to data from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights organization and conflict monitor tracking Ankara’s operations in the Kurdistan Region.
Civilians are often caught in the crossfire of the conflict between Turkey and the PKK. Many families have been forced to flee their homes in the Kurdistan Region's villages because of clashes, especially those in northern Duhok province near the border with Turkey, leaving entire villages empty. A Kurdistan Region parliamentary report published in 2020 said that the Turkey-PKK conflict has left over 500 villages empty across the Region.
