ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Duhok villagers risked their lives to extinguish the flames of a fire sparked by a Turkish bombardment earlier this week.
Turkish forces on Tuesday bombarded Sargale village in Amedi district, targeting alleged positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The bombs sparked a wildfire near the village that burned dozens of trees.
The village is part of an area that Turkey has declared prohibited, so authorities could not access it to help villagers extinguish the blaze. The villagers had no choice but to try to beat out the flames using tree branches. It took them five hours.
“Some of us risked our lives by going there, trying to extinguish the fire from 9am to 2pm,” Sherwan Rashid, a villager, told Rudaw’s Ayub Nasri on Thursday, the day after the fire.
The ashes smouldered until midnight. “It was really difficult,” said Rashid.
Frequent Turkish bombardment of the village that is close to the border has burned some 170 dunams of forest.
The bombs also damaged houses.
“The extent of the damage to my house is so big that we are afraid living in it,” said Khoshawi Salim. Deep cracks have opened up in his walls because of the explosions near the village.
“There is bombardment and shelling throughout the night,” he said, adding that the Turkish army uses heavy weapons.
He has collected some shrapnel near his house.
“Thousands of dunams of land in the bordering areas… have been burned, causing grave damage to the environment of the area,” said Kawa Sabri, head of Duhok’s forestry directorate.
The PKK is an armed group that struggles for the increased rights of Kurds in Turkey. It is designated a terrorist organization by Ankara, which has launched numerous operations against the group and its alleged offshoots in the Kurdistan Region and Syria. Kurdish civilians and rights organizations have criticized Turkey’s military campaign as civilian lives and property are frequently caught in the crossfire.
