Turkish airstrikes in Iraq's Sinjar Mountains this month are endangering the safety of the Yazidis and Christian Assyrians, Iraq's indigenous people. These ethnic minorities were targeted for genocide by ISIS beginning in 2014. Pictured: Battle-damaged buildings in the town of Sinjar, Iraq photographed on February 5, 2019. (Photo by Zaid Al-Obeidi/AFP via Getty Images)
Ishtartv.com
- gatestoneinstitute.org
by Uzay Bulut, June
28, 2020
Turkey's Defense Ministry announced on June 17 that the country had
"launched a military operation against the PKK" (Kurdistan Workers'
Party) in northern Iraq after carrying out a series of airstrikes. Turkey has
named its assaults "Operation Claw-Eagle" and "Operation
Claw-Tiger," the Turkish government-funded Anadolu Agency reported.
The Yazidi and Assyrian Christian communities
in the area had already been terrorized when they were targeted in a genocidal
attack by the Islamic State (ISIS) beginning in 2014.
The Yazidi and Assyrian natives
of the area have expressed their condemnation of the bombings.
On June 16, the Free Yezidi
Foundation (FYF) issued a statement, in which it "condemns in
strongest terms the Turkish airstrikes conducted in Sinjar, Iraq."
"In 2014, Daesh (ISIS)
terrorists swept through vast areas in Syria and Iraq, committing genocide
against the ethno-religious minority Yezidi community in Sinjar. Yezidis have
been displaced since that time and are slowly beginning to return back to their
areas of origin. These airstrikes, in violation of Iraqi sovereignty, heighten
the risk to Yezidi civilians and jeopardize the safe, voluntary return of a
fragile and severely traumatized minority population...
"Now, the recent airstrikes
conducted by Turkey have not only endangered the lives of Yezidis in Sinjar but
have also dimmed the prospect of the return of civilians to their areas of
origin. This places further hardship upon the more than 300,000 displaced
Yezidis living in grim conditions in IDP camps."
Yazda, a multi-national Yazidi organization
established in the aftermath of the Yazidi Genocide in 2014, also expressed
opposition to Turkey's bombing of the Sinjar Mountains. Saad Murad, Yazda's
Director of Media and Relations, told Gatestone:
"Turkish assaults on Sinjar
counter and directly inhibit the U.S. Administration's stated policy objective
of supporting return and reconstruction. They also hinder humanitarian work
generally and make NGOs more reluctant to implement projects in the Sinjar
region. Such actions prolong instability which will contribute to the
exacerbation of mass emigration to Western countries."
The bombings also endanger the
safety of Christian Assyrians, Iraq's indigenous people, who were targeted
alongside Yazidis for genocide by ISIS beginning in 2014. Iraq is considered
the heart of the Assyrian homeland.
A video of
a Turkish bombing in the Assyrian town of Bersiveh was posted on social media
on June 20, Athra Kado, an Assyrian rights advocate and resident of the town of
Alqosh in Iraq, said to Gatestone.
"As always, our people are
stuck in the middle of other people's unending fights. The PKK is turning our
areas into their positions and using Assyrian civilians as their human shields.
Turkey does not care about that and just keeps bombing. Despite international
law, such fighting is taking place, but Iraq and the Kurdistan Regional
Government (KRG) are not saying a word about it. There appears to be nothing to
do other than evacuate people from their ancient lands. On June 20, they even
bombed the safe spot where the other villagers could go."
"Nobody has been killed in
the bombing in Bersiveh, so it seems that the attack aimed at horrifying
people," Kado added.
"Also, in the Nahla valley,
the villagers are already hopeless about the situation, and it has become a
life-threatening issue for them. They told me when I was there a couple weeks
ago: 'When we see or hear a drone passing, we know that tomorrow there will be
bombings, they could hit our village, our house, or far from us; we just don't
know where.' That's the trauma they are forced to live with."
Younan Youkhanna, an Assyrian
journalist based in northern Iraq, is now in the Assyrian Challik village that
has been affected by Turkish bombings.
"We have been informed by
the Turkish forces that 'we'll bomb whenever we want to,'" he told
Gatestone.
"How could we live in such a
situation? And it is not just a day or two; the bombings happen very often. The
PKK fighters are passing the Iraqi-Turkish border to come here, and their
fighting terribly affects the people here, but the Iraqi government remains
silent on this situation. We Assyrians do not want to be part of the Turkish-Kurdish
violent conflict at all. So, we have been the most negatively affected group by
all this."
Youkhanna added that their
livelihoods have also been negatively affected by the ongoing fighting between
Turks and Kurds.
"In many of the villages in this
area named Barwar, the people had sheep, and they used to feed them on the
mountains, but currently, they cannot do so because of the fighting. Sharanesh
and Dashtatakh villages have been emptied many times because it is often bombed
almost every month. In the Barwar region, the existence of our people in all
villages of Kani Maseh/Ainnoneh sub-district are in continued danger. Our
people can no longer live in those villages.
"There are continued
military conflicts in the area and we Assyrians are the main victims of these
violent forces who fight for territorial expansion with no regard for the
rights of the natives in the area. But nobody seems to be concerned about our
struggles or wants to help us."
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