Iran shelling of border areas destroys Kurdistan Region's crops, forests
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Kurdistan Region villagers who live near the border with Iran have experienced severe losses due to Iran’s recent shelling of their areas, locals said on Wednesday.
The Iranian attacks have taken a massive toll on the livelihoods of residents in the border areas who are mostly dependent on farming and livestock as their primary source of income.
Last week, Iranian artilleries directed their fire at these areas during a two-day operation. The incident came in response to an increased number of clashes between the country’s security forces and fighters from opposition groups who have bases at locations that were targeted.
Shells struck a civilian home, killing a teenage girl and wounding two of her brothers. The casualties caused immediate condemnation by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), both about Tehran’s shelling and the fighters’ use of the Kurdistan Region’s territory as a launchpad to attack Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
The rates of incidents have rendered a large area unusable for farming, with over 620 acres of agricultural lands in the first half of 2019 having been reduced to ashes. Migrating shepherds also fear for their lives and have deterred from using the said area for grazing their cattle and sheep.
The ongoing bombardment also caused the evacuation of five villages in the sub-district of Sidakan, with the risk of evacuating another 20 villages due to fear of being targeted.
Kirmanj Izaat, mayor of Soran district, told Kurdistan 24 Iran “is responsible for compensating any damages caused from their attacks.”
Iranian artillery fire has been a regular occurrence on the Kurdistan Region’s border areas, much of which is claimed to be against Iranian Kurdish opposition fighters.
The KRG has called on the Iranian government to put an end to indiscriminate shelling of areas near the Kurdish border in the past and asked Iranian Kurdish fighters to avoid using the region to attack its neighboring state.
Due to similar attacks by Turkey, targeting fighters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), hundreds of villages along the Turkey-Kurdistan border have been evacuated due to the ongoing violence.
On the Iran border, villages were abandoned in Haji Omaran in the summer months as border guards warned they would establish a two-kilometer-wide, 10-kilometer-long security perimeter and open fire on those who refused to leave.
Editing by Karzan Sulaivany
(Kosar Nawzad contributed to this report; additional reporting by Tayfur Mohammed)
