Students in Duhok fear losing school year because of Turkey-PKK conflict

DUHOK, Kurdistan Region — Harmin Waheed, 19, is afraid she will miss out on this year's classes as she has fled home and sought shelter in another village with her family because of the ongoing conflict between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Waheed, a grade 12 student, and her family left the village of Kesta along with dozens of other families in late April. She says instead of going to school, she now just does housework. They have taken shelter in Dargalka village.

"They [Turkey] fired missiles plenty of times causing huge bangs, not letting us study. They did not let us continue our studies. Nobody was in the mood to study," she recalls of the misery they faced back home in Kesta.

Waheed and her family took shelter at Begova Highschool in the village of Dagalka.

"The aftermath leaves us terribly frightened. Although the fight is a little far from our village, we can still hear it. The loud bangs sound so close, they terrify us," Warshin Hassan, a student, told Rudaw on Monday.

Teachers have warned that the number of students is declining year by year thanks to the decades-long impact of warfare in the mountainous border region.

According to data from the Amedi Education Department, 22 schools and 800 students have been affected by Turkish airstrikes and bombings.

The Amedi sub-district where the above-mentioned villages are located has been hard hit by the war Turkey has waged against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region, an organization fighting for increased rights for Kurds in Turkey, but considered a terror group by Ankara. Over three decades, more than 500 Kurdistan Region villages have been emptied and scores of civilians have been killed.

Turkey launched Operations Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt on April 23, targeting alleged PKK positions in northern Duhok. People’s homes, farmlands, and livestock, as well as the surrounding environment have been damaged.

Translation by Zhelwan Zeyad Wali
Video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed