Bushfires, some of them severe, were raging in five villages in Barwarî Bala as a result of Turkish bombardments on Sunday. According to the NGO Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT) based in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the villages affected by the fires were Mêrga Qesrê, Girê Sor, Elkîşkê, Cembelkê and Bêlîzanê.

CPT spokesman Kamaran Osman told RojNews news agency that Elkîşkê is particularly at risk. From Sunday morning, the flames surrounded not only several houses, cultivated areas and a cemetery, but also the access road to the village.

At least nineteen families in the village were trapped and had to wait for hours to be evacuated despite requests for help. Osman had no information on injuries or deaths. Regarding the extent of the destruction caused by the flames, he said: “We estimate that around 240 hectares of cultivated and farmland have burned so far.”

The bush fires were ignited by heavy shelling by unmanned drones of the Turkish army.

Barwarî Bala – or Berwarî Bala depending on the dialect – which belongs to the Duhok governorate and borders Amêdî, is located with its garden-rich valleys in the southern Kurdish part of the Hekarî Mountains, which are considered a historical Assyrian settlement area. Very close by is the densely populated district of Kanî Masî, in the surrounding area of ​​which the Turkish army already operates several military bases and which serves as a kind of base for Turkey’s ongoing occupation offensive in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The KDP, which dominates the government in Hewlêr (Erbil), supports Ankara’s occupation campaign.

Turkish war policy in South Kurdistan

Since the Turkish invasion was expanded in June, the military has regularly set fire to civilian settlements in South Kurdistan – in addition to heavy daily bombings from the ground and air. The aim is to force the population to move. According to the Community Peacemaker Teams, numerous villages in the area around Kanî Masî have already been depopulated as a result of Turkish military violence, and other villages are threatened with the same fate. The international community is ignoring Turkey’s crimes in its neighboring country.