ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Clashes between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) across several villages in northern Duhok province have incurred significant damage with villagers considering evacuation amid “intensifying” bombardments.
“The bombardments have been intensifying for 15 days and houses are being damaged daily. If it continues like this, none of the 112 houses in these four villages will remain inhabited,” Azad Hamza, a representative of Amedi district’s Mizhe village, told Rudaw on Sunday.
He lamented that the ongoing bombardment has damaged 84 houses and “some of them have collapsed completely,” while other buildings such as mosques, schools, and health centers have also been damaged.
Turkey in mid-July sent hundreds of troops marching across the border into the Kurdistan Region to curb stated threats from the PKK in the area.
Founded in 1978, the PKK initially called for the establishment of an independent Kurdistan but now calls for autonomy. The group is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey. It has bases in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains.
“They had built 112 houses. Most of them had received agricultural loans for house construction, now they cannot pay the loans,” Hamza said, referring to the villages of Spindare, Girgashe, Kavnemje, and Mizhe at the foot of Mount Gara in Amedi.
He added that authorities initially told them that evacuating their villages would be a temporary measure but they are still unable to return.
The clashes have also inflicted significant environmental damage, burning scores of orchards and forests in an area famous for its lush greenery.
On Friday, an altercation in Duhok province’s Zakho near the Turkish border led to the deaths of two Iraqi border guards. Baghdad and Ankara blamed the PKK but the PKK blamed Turkey.
In a presser with his Iraqi counterpart in Baghdad, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Sunday said that Ankara is looking forward to Iraq designating the PKK as a terrorist organization, with the Kurdish armed group currently listed as a “banned” organization by the Iraqi government.
