‘Blood is everywhere’:Witness recounts tragedy of Turkish strike on Iraqi resort

Screaming everywhere, blood on the floor, shoes scattered and abandoned, plates of food and chairs lying in the stream, children and women running in terror. This is how the scene looked, as described by one of the workers in a tourist resort in the mountains of Iraq’s Kurdistan region after it was subjected to a bloody artillery shelling on Wednesday, which Baghdad blamed on Turkey.

“As if time had stopped at that moment,”Haidar Mohammad, 43, told Jusoor Post about the day he will never forget in his life, when he carried the bodies of innocent Iraqi citizens on his shoulders.

In this rural area in the Zakho district of Dohuk governorate in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, about 5 kilometers from the border with Turkey, the tragedy occurred when the artillery surprised Iraqi tourists, killing nine of them and wounding 29, according to CNN Arabia.

This tourist resort is located around a stream near the village of Barkh, surrounded by trees and kiosks to welcome visitors and vacationers who come here to entertain themselves in nature.

“It was a beautiful, sunny summer day that did not portend a disaster,” Haidar, who owns a kiosk in the resort, described the beginning of the day the tragedy occurred.

“Every day, about 100 buses visit this place, in addition to those who come with their cars,”he said, explaining that “Iraqi tourists come here a lot.”

“The resort was full of visitors, and suddenly we heard shelling and loud gunshots, and then we didn't see anything,” he continued.

“In the midst of the screams, everyone was running around, trying to hide from the bombing. Suddenly the resort turned upside down, chairs and tables collapsed into the stream, and food and drink were scattered,”Haidaradded, asking, “What is the fault of these innocent people?”

He said that he did not know what he was supposed to do; should he save himself, his colleagues, or the visiting children and women? He added that the shock was so great that some families forgot their children and fled, leaving the victims behind.

Haidar explained that the pictures of these tragic scenes were documented by many foreign agencies that inspected the place as part of a tour organized by the Ministry of Information in the Kurdistan Regional Government a day after the incident.

Signs of a diplomatic row erupted between Iraq and Turkeyafter Baghdad blamed Ankara for the missile attack. But Ankara denied any responsibility and pointed the finger at the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), according to BBC Arabic.

The United States and Germany also separately condemned the Turkish bombing of the resort, according to Deutsche Welle.

A large part of the Iraqi political class denounced what happened. The matter also sparked popular anger in Iraq, where hundreds of people demonstrated in various regions of the country, and some of the protests included burning the Turkish flag.

Baghdad summoned the Turkish ambassador to protest against the attack and also demanded the withdrawal of the Turkish army from its territory. The Iraqi authorities announced the recall of its charge d'affaires from Ankara and “stopping the procedures for sending a new ambassador to Turkey,” according to an official statement.

Earlier, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kazemi condemned the bombing, saying that “the Turkish forces committed again a clear and flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty.”

Iraqi state television said that Baghdad had filed a complaint with the UN Security Council over the Turkish bombing.

A number of angry demonstrators gathered near the Turkish visa office in the province of Najaf and lowered the Turkish flag, calling for the office to be closed,while other protesters called for a demonstration in the province to protest against the bombing, according to Baghdad Today.

The Turkish army constantly carries out cross-border operations and launches air strikes on northern Iraq, which it says are PKK positions.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party, which Turkey and other countries have listed as a terrorist organization for decades, uses the northern mountains of Iraq as a springboard for its operations in the framework of the decades-old insurgency against the Turkish state and its army, according to Reuters.

Last April, Turkey launched a military operation against Kurdish militants in the Matina region of northern Iraq, in which commandos and special forces, backed by helicopters, participated, according to AFP.

But the majority of the victims of the recent Dohuk attack are Iraqi tourists from the center and south of the country fleeing from the heat in their regions to the mild climate in the mountainous regions of Kurdistan, according to AFP.

Haidar asked, “Is there no end to the blood of Iraqis?” He expressed his anger at the political and governmental situation in Iraq, saying that all he cares about is innocent people who only want to live a normal life after many years of bloodshed.

He held the Iraqi politicians responsible for what happened, saying, “Our village has about 35 houses. I think that, in the end, there will be no place to live. We must leave this village.”