PEREGRAF
Updated at 8:30pm
Turkish airstrike targeted a car in a village in the Halsho sub-district of Qaladze district in Sulaymaniyah Province, killing four passengers in the car.
Abu Bakr Weissi, Halsho sub-district mayor, told PEREGRAF: "Today Sunday at 1:20 pm in Kanilan village in Halsho sub-district, a warplane targeted a Toyota Pickup on a highway".
The Halsho sub-district mayor visited the place of the accident with a team of investigation and said that "four passengers who were all men died in a car and their identities are not yet known whether they belonged to Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or border citizens, the bodies were sent to Qaladze forensic medicine."
"They have revealed the identity of one of them who is from the area, three others are still unknown and no one has asked for information about them like relatives," the sub-district mayor told PEREGRAF after a few hours. "A source close to the one who is dead said that "the person belongs to PKK and the other three were PKK guerrillas".
It is not the first time that the area has faced the bombing of Turkish warplanes, but as The Halsho sub-district mayor says, the previous bombings were not so near in the center of Qaladze district, "This incident is 12 kilometers from the center of Qaladze".
With the continuation of Turkish ground and air operations in Badinan against PKK, Turkish warplanes occasionally bombard the border of other areas in the Kurdistan region and Makhmur camp Civilians. Turkish operation in the area resulted in civilians and villagers as main victims.
According to a report by the CPT, more than 99 people have been killed since 2015 due to Turkish operations and bombings on Kurdish land; 15 of them in the first 6 months of 2020. Hundreds of villages have been evacuated due to the dangers posed on the security of the lives and the livelihood of thousands of families.
After the Civil War between the Kurdistan Democratic Party (PDK) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Turkey set up its base in the region in the 1990s. According to a report by the CPT, it has set up 37 military and intelligence bases, most of them deeply stationed more than 35 kilometers into the region's land, and are part of the center of villages and towns in Duhok, Zakho and Soran.