Iraq: Turkish drone strike on Kurdish refugee camp kills several
Displaced Iraqis receive aid from the UAE Red Crescent in Debaga camp east of Makhmur, northern Iraq, on May 25, 2021 (illustrative image).
Safin Hamed AFP / Archivos
Text by: RFI Follow
3 min
Three civilians were killed on Saturday June 5 in the bombing of a Turkish drone on a refugee camp in northern Iraq, which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had recently threatened to "clean up" because of the presence of the Party Kurdistan Workers (PKK).
Turkey did not confirm the strike.
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The drone strike targeted Makhmur camp, in the province of Nineveh, bordering Kurdistan, a refugee camp established in the late 1990s by the UN to accommodate Kurds from Turkey.
The presence of the PKK (Kurdish Workers' Party) is well known there.
It is also his men who manage the entrances and exits of the camp, indicates our correspondent in Baghdad,
Lucile Wassermann
.
Earlier this week, Recep Teyyip Erdogan compared this camp to the Qandil Mountains - located further east in Iraqi Kurdistan, on the border with Iran - the largest base of the PKK, which since 1984 has been delivering bloody guerrillas on the Turkish soil having killed more than 40,000 people.
► See also: The Kurdistan Workers' Party accused of killing thirteen Turks detained in Iraq
“
For us, Makhmur's question is as important as Qandil.
Why ?
Because Makhmur has almost become the incubator of Qandil (...).
If we do not intervene, this incubator will continue to produce (terrorists)
”, launched the Turkish president.
And it is in this capacity that Turkey threatened to act last week.
"
If the United Nations does not clean up this place
then we will take care of it as a member of the United Nations
," Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned.
Has Turkey therefore gone from words to deeds?
Its officials have not confirmed it.
Operations against the PKK intensify
The PKK, which campaigns for a unified Kurdistan straddling Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, is as much the enemy of Ankara as it is of Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan.
This fratricidal war between Kurds caused new victims this Saturday morning: five peshmerga, the fighters of Iraqi Kurdistan, Ankara's great ally, were killed in an ambush by the PKK, in the Kurdish province of Dohuk, bordering Turkey.
The operation itself is not very surprising.
In addition to threats, Turkey operates very regularly in northern Iraq to target PKK positions.
Over the past year, these operations have intensified, in the air, but also on the ground.
And Ankara's recent use of drones makes it possible to locate, identify and eliminate targets in minutes.
Baghdad denounces a violation of its sovereignty.
The Turkish ambassador has been summoned regularly by Iraqi authorities in the past, but no major steps have yet been taken to sanction Turkey for his interventions.
► Also to listen: In northern Iraq, Kurdish civilians are suffering from the conflict with Turkey
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Iraq
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