By Peregraf
When his uncle arrived, Dlovan’s vehicle was still burning. He could not recognize the corpses of his nephew and his other friends as a Turkish airstrike had fully burned them in the car.
The Turkish aircrafts targeted Dlovan and his friends in Bamarni town in Amedi, Duhok province, on the pretext of attacking the members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
"I swear Dlovan had no affiliation with the political parties, including the PKK. He only did farming," his uncle told Peregraf.
After his death, Dlovan Omer Shahin, 30, left his wife and two children; a son and a daughter.
Hashm Omer, Dlovan’s uncle, was the first person to witness the scene. "Two persons were burned in the vehicle. No one could recognize them due to the degree of the burn. We were assured that it was them by the number of the plate of the vehicle," Omer said.
Turkey has launched the Claw-Eagle operation against the guerrillas of the PKK in the Bahdinan areas, Duhok province, since mid-June. The operation began with airstrikes and later included ground attacks in several domains in Bahdinan. Clashes are still erupting between the Turkish forces and the PKK’s guerrillas.
While a number of civilians have been killed by Turkish airstrikes, the country still denies that it has targeted civilians.
"Dlovan had no relations with the PKK. The day when he was killed, he went to Barmani with his wife to visit his father in-law," Omer claimed.
Omer also added that, "Dlovan and a friend of him had to go to a place. One of his brother had a social problem and was detained. He was trying to find a way to free and solve the problem through a person."
"After leaving the house of his father in-law, they arrived in the place and when they stopped the car, the Turkish aircraft bombarded them," said Omer. He also claimed that there are no PKK militants and bases in the place where Dlovan and his friend were killed.
The family of Dlovan, who resides in Batifa sub-district, Zakho district in Duhok, has farm fields.
Peregraf has learned that over 10 villages have been evacuated since the start of Turkish incursion into Iraqi Kurdistan in mid-June and the people have been displaced to Zakho and Duhok. Several other individuals have been wounded and killed.
When Omer was informed about the bombardment, he had already known that his nephew, Dlovan, visited the area where the airstrike happened. He said that he called Dlovan and received no answers, adding that he suspiciously and immediately went there, "the corpses were burning in the vehicle in which they were glued to the cushions."
On the pretext of fighting the PKK, Turkey has violated Iraqi sovereignty and has established several military bases in the Kurdistan Region since 1995.
Turkish bombardments have also killed and wounded tens of civilians in Makhmour, Sulaimani, Qandil and Zini Warte and Shiladzi.
On June 29, Turkish aircrafts targeted a vehicle in the town of Shiladzi, Duhok, in which four civilians were killed.
Historian Paiber Artisi, who has been documenting the number of victims of the Turkish and PKK conflicts in Shiladzi since 1996, earlier told Peregraf, "49 people have been martyred by the Turkish air and ground attacks since 1996 and 20 persons have been injured, despite that 18 women have miscarried due to the sound of the bombings."
Artisi data reveals that eight people have gone missing since then and there were people who died of the sound, fear and distress of the bombings.
The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is yet to demonstrate an explicit stance against Ankara’s violations and has called on PKK to leave the region and move its conflicts with Turkey to northern Kurdistan [Turkish Kurdistan].
PKK guerillas have moved to the KRI boundaries since the Iraqi Kurdish civil war in the 1990s and have also fought the Iraqi Kurdish parties. As a result of their increasing deployment to the region, they have occupied a wider area.
The area of PKK rule, called Harmi Parastni Midiya, is located in Qandil in the Zagraous mountains, which share border with southern, northern and eastern Kurdistan in Iraq, Turkey and Iran, respectively.