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Human Rights Watch slams Turkey, Iran
attacks on civilians in Iraqi Kurdistan
2.9.2011 |
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Cross-Border Attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan Should Spare
Iraqi Civilians, HRW Says. At Least 10 Dead;
Hundreds of Families Displaced.
September 2, 2011
BEIRUT, — Iran and Turkey’s cross-border
attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan have killed at least 10
civilians and displaced hundreds since mid-July
2011, Human Rights Watch said today. Some of the
attacks may have been carried out without sufficient
attempts to ensure minimal impact on civilians,
Human Rights Watch said.
Both Iran and Turkey say that their military
operations, including artillery and aerial
bombardments, are aimed at armed groups operating
out of Iraqi Kurdistan along the northern and
eastern borders. When Human Rights Watch visited
those areas in August, Iraqi residents and officials
said that many of the targeted areas are purely
civilian and are not being used by the armed groups. |
Women mourn after shelling by Turkish warplanes that
killed seven Iraqi Kurds in the northern town of
Rania, Sulaimaniyah province, Kurdistan region of
Iraq on August 22, 2011. Photo: Reuters |
Evidence suggests that the regular Iranian
bombardments may be an attempt to force Iraqi
civilians out of some areas near the Iranian border.
“Year after year, civilians in northern Iraq have
suffered from these cross-border attacks, but the
situation right now is dire,” said Joe Stork, deputy
Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Iran
and Turkey should do all they can to protect
civilians and their property from harm, no matter
what the reason for their attacks in Iraqi
Kurdistan.”
Iran started its cross-border attacks in northern
Iraq in mid-July, claiming to be targeting an armed
group associated with the Iranian Kurdish Party for
Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK) operating in the
mountainous border region. Beginning on August 18,
Turkey carried out attacks across its border with
Iraq, targeting the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK),
an armed group affiliated with PJAK that is fighting
its own decades-long conflict with Turkey.
Shelling by Iran
Since mid-July, Iran’s operations against PJAK
inside or near villages close to the Iranian border
have led to the displacement of hundreds of
families, caused the deaths of at least three
villagers, and wounded an unknown number of people,
according to international humanitarian aid
organizations, Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG)
officials, and media reports. Farmers from the
border regions told Human Rights Watch in early
August that the shelling had damaged their homes and
that they saw Iranian soldiers cross the border into
Iraq and kill farmers’ livestock. The attacks on
civilians and their property that they described
were similar to attacks documented by Human Rights
Watch in June 2010.
Human Rights Watch visited the Choman and Qalat Diza
districts and Qasre, Sangasar, and Zharawa
subdistricts between July 26 and August 6 and
interviewed more than a dozen displaced villagers as
well as others in villages still being shelled. All
villagers interviewed said that Kurdish armed groups
had never been in their areas and that there were no
other military targets in the vicinity at any point
before or during the shelling. The affected areas
are in the Qandil Mountains, along the eastern
borders of Erbil and Sulaimaniyaprovinces, in the
region administered by the KRG.
In the crowded Gojar tent camp in Sulaimaniya
province, Fatima Mahmoud, 70, told Human Rights
Watch she fled there with 11 family members in late
July, after two Iranian shells struck her house in
the village of Sune, 30 kilometers west of Qalat
Diza. She said the village mosque and school were
also damaged by shelling.
“It has been more than six years that Iran has been
shelling our area, but this year, it was
unbelievable,” she said. “I don’t know why Iran is
shelling our village – we have never seen any PJAK
members at all. I have never seen any [PJAK] members
in our village.”
Attacks by Turkey
On August 18, Turkey began a bombing and artillery
campaign against the PKK, which it blamed for
earlier fatal attacks in Turkey. On August 21,
according to Iraqi officials, Turkish warplanes
bombed a vehicle carrying civilians. The attack
killed seven members of the same
extended family according to relatives of those
killed, local officials, and media workers. Turkey
denied its planes were responsible.
The family group, which included four children, was
driving on a highly travelled main roadway in a
white 2011 Nissan pickup truck from the village of
Bole to Rania to visit relatives. Shamal Hassan told
Human Rights Watch on August 29 that the attack
instantly killed his wife, Rezan, and his daughters,
Solin, two months old, and Sonya, 18 months old. The
attack also killed his wife’s parents and two other
children.
An emotional Hassan told Human Rights Watch, “The
attack was so destructive that we couldn’t recognize
their bodies. I want the international community to
hold Turkey accountable. They ruined my life.”
Media photos released by multiple Iraqi Kurdish news
organizations of the scene corresponded with
Hassan’s description, and showed charred and
disembodied children and adults splayed on the
ground near the remnants of a destroyed vehicle.
Human Rights Watch could not independently verify
the authenticity of the photographs. There has been
no evidence of any military target in the vicinity.
While the Turkish military said that it has killed
more than 145 suspected PKK militants with artillery
fire and airstrikes in northern Iraq since August
17, it has denied that its warplanes killed the
family,www.ekurd.netsaying
only that news footage of the destroyed vehicle was
not consistent with damage caused by Turkish aerial
bombardment. However, Turkish officials have stated
that Turkish warplanes were bombing multiple
military targets, such as anti-aircraft guns and
ammunitions caches, in the area at the time.
Iraqi political and military officials have
repeatedly blamed Turkish warplanes for the attack.
An August 28 statement from the KRG stated that
“[KRG] President Barzani strongly condemned Turkish
military attacks,” which it said were responsible
for the seven deaths.
Civilian Displacement
Abdulwahid Gwani, mayor of the Choman district,
which has been particularly hard-hit by Iranian
shelling, told Human Rights Watch that the attacks
by Iran and Turkey had cumulatively killed 9
civilians and displaced 325 families from Choman and
500 families in the Sidakan area.
“They [Iran and Turkey] don’t differentiate between
civilians and armed groups, and the bombardments are
more intense compared with last year,” Gwani said.
“We notice that the Turkish bombardments are more
random this year – they used to target specific
locations in previous years but now it is kind of
arbitrary.”
Earlier in August, Gwani and several displaced
villagers told Human Rights Watch, the attacks
forced hundreds of poor farmers to leave their crops
unattended, destroying much of this year’s harvest.
A number of farmers told Human Rights Watch that
because there has been shelling each year during the
short planting and harvesting season, they believed
it showed an intentional effort to drive civilians
from the area by harming their livelihood.
As in past years, aid organizations and local
municipalities have struggled to meet the displaced
families’ basic needs. The Kurdistan government does
not keep an official registry of displaced
villagers.
The representative of an international humanitarian
aid organization working in the affected areas told
Human Rights Watch on August 30 that the attacks
have led to the displacement of 450 families, but
that this number includes only families who have
resettled in tent camps, and not those still moving
around, staying with their families, or elsewhere. A
delegation of Iraqi civil society organizations from
Baghdad visited the areas on August 3 and reported
the displacement of “up to 750 families from the
areas of Choman, Sidi Khan and Haji Omran.”
The International Organization for Migration told
Human Rights Watch on August 26 that it has so far
distributed aid to approximately 295 families in
tent camps – 275 families in Sulaimaniya and 20 in
Erbil – but that another roughly 300 families from
Erbil have been displaced and may require future
aid.
Government Reactions
In August, the Iraqi government summoned both Iran’s
and Turkey’s ambassadors in Baghdad because of
concern about the operations, and both the Iraqi and
KRG parliaments have strongly condemned the attacks.
On July 27, an Iraqi parliamentary official who
declined to be named told Human Rights Watch that,
during a meeting with a high-level Iranian diplomat
that day, the diplomat stressed the “importance to
Iran” of creating a buffer zone along the Iranian
border “with no residents.” The official said that
the diplomat also suggested deploying the Iraqi army
to the area, instead of the Kurdistan regional
forces who now patrol the border, because the Iraqis
are not “as close” to the Kurdish residents.
Officials of both the KRG and the central government
in Baghdad have told Human Rights Watch in recent
weeks that Iran and Turkey have been defiant and
dismissive in their private responses. Publicly,
both countries contend that they have a right to
attack the armed groups inside northern Iraq and
both countries deny targeting civilians.
At an August 21 news conference in Turkey, Deputy
Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ said that the
militaryoperations “will continue without hesitation
when necessary.” The governor of Iran’s West
Azarbaijan Province, Vahid Jalalzadeh, told Iranian
state television on August 6 that, “The operation
against the group [PJAK] will continue until all
members are killed,” but called reports of Iranian
soldiers crossing into Iraq “rumors.”
The PKK and PJAK both openly admit to multiple
guerrilla attacks against Turkish or Iranian
soldiers in a self-proclaimed struggle for ethnic
equality for Kurds in those countries. Both are
considered terrorist organizations by the United
States and European Union.
“The evidence suggests that Turkey and Iran are not
doing what they need to do to make sure their
attacks have a minimum impact on civilians, and in
the case of Iran, it is at least quite possibly
deliberately targeting civilians,” Stork said.
“Regardless of their reasons for carrying out
attacks, they need to respect international
humanitarian law.”
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author or news agency,
hrw.org
- Human Rights Watch
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