Drone hits Makhmour camp: Officials

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A drone hit a camp for refugees in Makhmour in Erbil province on Tuesday, killing one person and injuring others.

Sirwan Barzani, a Peshmerga commander in Makhmour, told Rudaw that one person was killed and two people were injured. 

“The target was a house in the camp, and it is not clear whether the casualties are civilians or not,” Barzani added.

Previously, a source told Rudaw that three women were injured - one severely - as a result of the strike.

“A Turkish drone strike has targeted a motorcycle belonging to PKK [Kurdistan Workers’ Party] fighters within the Makhmour camp,” Hisham al-Hashimi, a member of the Nineveh provincial council, told Rudaw.

PKK-affiliated media reported that one woman was taken to a hospital in Makhmour. 

Makhmour Camp hosts around 10,000 Kurdish refugees from southeast Turkey. The majority of the residents came from villages depopulated during Turkey’s conflict with the PKK.

The camp is in an area disputed between Baghdad and Erbil creating a security vacuum. Turkish air and drone strikes have hit alleged PKK targets in the area previously with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2021 calling it an “incubation center for terrorism.” 

Turkey began intensifying its decades-long war against the PKK, particularly in Duhok province, in mid-June after Erdogan repeatedly said he would launch a new offensive in the summer. Ankara has deployed hundreds of troops to the province.

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. 

 

Updated at 10:24 p.m. correcting as a camp for refugees