“The two tourists are from Mosul and they went into a restricted area… A bomb fell close to their car and as a result they both were killed,” Farhad Mahmood, mayor of Batifa sub-district in Zakho, told Rudaw on Sunday.
“We are currently waiting for their families to come here and a team of border guards and security to be able to get their bodies back,” he added.
The tourists went to the area without knowing that it is restricted, the mayor explained, adding it is not immediately clear if any clashes were occurring at the time, but the area has seen daily bombardment.
Turkey launched twin operations, Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt, against the PKK in the Kurdistan Region on April 23. The operations are focused on the Metina and Avashin areas of northern Duhok province.
Civilian populations and the environment have been devastated by the conflict.
A reported seven other civilians have been killed, several injured, and 20 villages emptied this year.
The PKK is an armed Kurdish group fighting for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. Ankara considers it a terrorist organization. For decades, Turkish forces have pursued the PKK within the Kurdistan Region’s borders.
A parliamentary report issued last year concluded that at least 504 villages have been emptied across the Kurdistan Region since 1992, and hundreds of people have been killed. In Duhok alone, 366 villages have been abandoned since 1998.
According to figures compiled by the International Crisis Group, which tracks the Turkey-PKK conflict, as of early June there have been 144 fatalities this year. The dead are 33 Turkish soldiers, 103 PKK fighters, and eight civilians. The majority of the casualties this year have occurred in the Kurdistan Region.
Since the decades-long conflict was reignited in 2015 following the collapse of peace efforts, at least 5,464 people have been killed, including 549 civilians.
