(25 Feb 2021) LEAD IN:
Locals in some villages in Iraq's Kurdish region have fled their homes following Turkish airstrikes targeting fighters from the Kurdistan Workers' Party.
The villagers say that a few people were injured, and several houses were damaged in the bombardment.
STORY-LINE:
Some Kurdish and Christian villages in Iraq's Kurdish region, in the country's far north, have been caught in the crossfire between Turkish forces and the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.
In the village of Gree, in Dohuk governorate, several houses were damaged by Turkish airstrikes targeting the Kurdish militants, and three people were injured, according to locals.
The villagers say they had to flee due to the bombardment.
"Two large rockets and a small one hit an area just about 100-150 metres outside our village, but it destroyed the village. We had three injured people and all of our families left (the area)," said Rashid Selim, a shepherd who fled the village of Gree after the airstrikes.
He says the three injured people were his cousins.
The villages of Gree, Berkevi, and Musalaka in northern Dohuk governorate were mostly abandoned due to the recent Turkish operation in the area.
Locals of other small villages, like Yusuf Ava, Mel Arab, Shilan, Soriya and others, have already fled their homes.
Most of them have resettled in the nearby town of Jemanky and and the village of Bersive in Dohuk's sub-district of Darkar.
Some of them managed to move to the city of Dohuk.
Turkey has carried out numerous crossborder incursions into Iraq over the years to fight the PKK, which maintains bases in the region.
Turkey has long been seeking to form a secure zone along its borders with Iraq and Syria to force Kurdish insurgents away from the frontier.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the PKK began an insurgency in Turkey's majority Kurdish southeast region in 1984.
The PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the European Union.
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