ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — New videos from holidaymakers in a resort near Erbil have emerged showing heavy machine guns being used to mark the occasion of Newroz as a teenager wounded by celebratory gunfire fights for her life in an intensive care unit in a hospital in Duhok city.
In a video provided to Rudaw English on Tuesday by Fadhil Hajee, Erbil traffic police spokesperson, two young boys are seen coming out of a car and shooting into the air with an AK-47 and a pistol in a communal area where other holiday goers are present. In a separate video submitted to Rudaw from Erbil's Sheikh Turab resort, the sound of heavy automatic rifles and machine guns can be heard at what appears to be the site where dozens of families are picnicking.
Almost the entire population of the Kurdistan Region ventures out into the mountains and resorts on the first day of Newroz to celebrate the arrival of the spring, which signals the beginning of the new Kurdish year, 2721. Celebratory gunfire is often part of these festivities. Kurdish authorities have repeatedly pledged to crack down on the practice, without much success.
Dozens of people are wounded by celebratory gunfire every year in the Kurdistan Region, occasionally fatally. This year's Newroz makes clear that the practice is not abating.
On Sunday evening, 15-year-old Ayjan Abdulmalik was celebrating Newroz with her family when a stray bullet struck her in the head, sending her into a coma. Her family fled the Syrian civil war in 2012 and has stayed in Domiz refugee camp near Duhok for almost a decade, preferring the relative safety of the Kurdistan Region to their war-torn homeland. Doctors are not sure if she will ever wake up from her comatose state.
The prevalence and availability of firearms across the Kurdistan Region are mostly due to dozens of gun markets, including in the Kasnazan area of Erbil where grenades, pistols, automatic rifles, and even heavy machine guns are available for purchase. Some gun traders boast about the availability of rockets and mortars.
Traffic police spokesperson Fadhil Hajee told Rudaw English on Tuesday, a rainy day, that "we should be thankful there were no picnics today, otherwise we would see heavy weaponry used such as DShK [heavy machine gun] and mortar."
"Sadly, holding a peaceful picnic without shooting and respecting your surroundings has not become the culture here," he added.
Social media users criticized the gunfire.
"Sadly, this happens every single year," one person commented on the video of the shooting on Rudaw's Facebook page. "At least they are not shooting a boar," read another comment, referring to the killing of a wild boar that went viral on social media during Newroz.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has struggled to bring gun ownership under control and decrease the number of weapons in private hands. In 2019, it gave gun owners six months to register their firearms and give up their heavy weapons.
Last year saw an increase in reported gun violence in the province of Sulaimani, but also across the Kurdistan Region, Sulaimani police spokesperson Sarkawt Ahmad told Rudaw English in late November.
According to director of Erbil's police Brigadier-General Dler Najar, there were 65 homicides in 2020, out of which 61 suspected perpetrators were arrested and tried in a court of law. Of 32 shootings in the city last year, 29 offenders were arrested and taken to court.
