‘There was water in front of us and fire behind us’: vacationing witness recounts Kuna Masi airstrike

Karwan Faidhi Dri

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Zharo Bakhtyar and his family wanted to get away from the stress of the summer heat and coronavirus hassle by spending a few hours of the Friday weekend to take in some nature. 

They never expected their vacation to be violently interrupted by an airstrike.

The strike on mid-day Thursday targeted a shop in the village resort in the Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani province, close to the Iranian border. Shaho Osman, mayor of the town of Sharbazhir, told Rudaw that the strike targeted a pickup truck, injuring six civilians and killing one fighter, whom he did not identify. 

Turkey and Iran carry out air and ground attacks against both Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK) on their borders with Iraq where the two groups use as a safe haven. PJAK has said that one of its fighters was killed in the attack and three others injured "while returning from duty." 

Seeking a weekend retreat from the near-40℃ summer heat, the 32 year old resident of Sulaimani decided to take his wife, Lana Ibrahim, and his son Nayzhan to the resort village of Kani Masi, about one hour’s drive from the city. 

“We were bored at home and wanted to have a good time someplace nearby. We chose Kuna Masi because the water is not deep and it is close to us,” Bakhtyar told Rudaw English via Whatsapp on Friday. 

“We left Sulaimani at 2 pm and arrived there around 3 pm. There, we sat under one of the bungalows and ate some food. Other people were listening to music and the children were playing. We were very happy because we were far from the city crowds, and all the stress lately related to coronavirus.”

Around 5 pm, while the sun was still high, the children went to play in the water to cool off, Bakhtyar recalls. It was about fifteen minutes later that panic struck.

What happened next, which by chance was captured on video, shocked Bahktyar’s family and thousands of viewers on social media when a leisurely moment of joy changed to a nightmare in an instant.

The video, recorded by Bakhtyar's sister in-law and shared with Rudaw English shows Bakhtyar, his young son and other children playing in the water with their parents in a shallow pond at the resort. Suddenly, the sound of an explosion is heard, and people start screaming and running, before the video abruptly ends. 

“All of a sudden we heard a loud sound,” Bakhtyar recalled. “I, my wife and my son were in the middle of the water. We saw debris raining on us, coming from the road and the area which was hit by a rocket,” he said. 

Bakhtyar says the strike hit “about 20 meters away” from the pond, causing debris and pieces of broken glasses to rain near and on them.

The witness to the strike also said that they were uncertain whether it would be safer to get in their cars, or to stay where they were; terrified and not knowing if another strike may hit at any moment. 

“The men were confused and did not know what to do. Women and children were crying. Some people had fainted out of fear,” Bakhtyar told Rudaw English.

Bakhtyar says he and his family ran to take cover underneath the wooden bungalows, the only available shelter nearby, but soon after saw that the trees adjacent to the road above where the airstrike had hit had caught fire.

“It was really a bad experience – there was water in front of us and fire behind us,” Bakhtyar said.

None of his family members were injured, but the experience of witnessing an airstrike at such close range, Bakhtyar says, caused them significant psychological damage.

“We are physically unharmed but all of us, especially my wife, are psychologically damaged. She is very worried and terrified. My son kept crying until late into the night,” Bakhtyar told Rudaw English. 

Iraq has come under assault from both Turkish airstrikes and Iranian artillery fire in recent days as Turkey on June 15 launched a combined aerial and ground-based assault dubbed Operation Claw-Eagle, aimed at targeting suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the region.

Local officials in Duhok and Erbil provinces have reported at least five civilians killed amid Turkey’s offensive launched on June 15, dubbed Operation Claw-Eagle. 

In a statement released on Friday, the Turkish defense ministry denied that its military has ever harmed civilians, and said it only targets “terrorists.” 

“As it has been the case before, no civilian has been harmed or will be harmed in this operation,” the Turkish defense ministry stated. 

On Friday, Iraq’s presidency denounced “violations affecting national sovereignty as a result of the repeated Turkish military operations and its violation of Iraqi airspace, which killed a number of unarmed civilians,” in a statement published on Twitter. 

Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement late Friday that the Iraqi presidency's statement "depended on untrue claims."

"The claims in the statement are actually used by the terrorist orgization of the PKK and its supporters to defame our anti-terrorism operations. Iraqi authorities should not be tools for terrorists' propaganda," read the statement. 

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has called for both Turkey and militants in the area to disengage from its territory. “We call on the Republic of Turkey to respect the sovereignty of our land and homeland, and the PKK must leave these areas in order not to cause chaos on the Kurdistan Region’s bordering areas,” a KRG spokesperson said on June 18.