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1,800 Kurds displaced by weekend Turkish
shelling: UNHCR
18.12.2007
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December
18, 2007
GENEVA, -- The UN's refugee agency was
mobilising Tuesday to direct help towards over 1,800
people who fled their homes amid Turkey's bombing
raids into Kurdistan region in 'northern Iraq'.
As around 300 Turkish troops crossed the border in
the first, limited ground incursion targeting
Kurdish rebels since tensions erupted in October,
the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
identified 10 villages damaged by the weekend raids.
Seven people, five fighters and two civilians, were
killed, according to a toll published by the
Turkey's rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on its
Internet site.
Some 300 families translating into over 1,800
individuals have been displaced from Sulaimaniyah
and Erbil provinces in the Iraq Kurdish region,
according to the UN agency,www.ekurd.net
which also recorded over
200 livestock deaths.
"The displaced people told us that ten villages had
been affected by the shelling," said UNHCR
spokeswoman Astrid van Genderen Stort.
"Our teams reported ongoing shelling Monday in the
Sangasar Pishdar district, causing even more
displacement," she added.
Displaced persons, staying with family or friends,
have received bedding and other items of necessity,
following a request from the partially autonomous
Kurdistan regional government.
The UNHCR estimates that 4.6 million Iraqis have
left their homes since the March 2003 US-led
coalition liberation. 2.4 million have been
displaced within Iraq, with the other 2.2 million
fleeing into neighbouring countries, principally
Syria and Jordan.
Iraqi Kurdistan politician says, Turkey is using
Turkey's Kurdish separatist PKK rebel group as an
excuse to invade Kurdistan region 'Iraq' to prevent
the establishment of Kurdistan state in the Kurdish
autonomous region in 'northern Iraq',www.ekurd.net
Turkey fears this could
fan separatism among its own large Kurdish
population in southeast Turkey.
The regional government of Iraq's semi-autonomous
Kurdistan region condemned a cross-border incursion
of Turkish troops on Tuesday.
"We condemn this incursion. Turkey wants to transfer
the problem onto the territory of Iraqi Kurdistan,"
said Fouad Hussein, head of the office of Kurdistan
regional President Massoud Barzani. He said he did
not know the size of the Turkish force which had
crossed the border.
AFP
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