The airstrike took place in front of the Martyr Aryen Park gate, a place where hundreds of people come and go daily. In addition, the schools of the Makhmour camp are also located in this area.
Makhmour Camp is 180km south of the Turkish border and hosts thousands of Kurdish refugees forcibly displaced from their villages in SE Turkey by the Turkish army in the 1990s.
On 1st of June Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Turkey is planning an operation against the camp. He defined the camp as a ‘hole’ for the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) members.
“If the United Nations does not clean it up, we will do it as a UN member,” Erdogan said.
Makhmour Camp, located approximately 100 kilometers from the city of Hewlêr (Erbil), the capital of the Federated Kurdistan Region, and connected to Mosul province, has been under an embargo since 17th July, 2019.
The United Nations recognised camp, previously called Atrush Camp, holds Kurdish refugees who had to migrate from the border cities, towns and villages in SE Turkey, such as Şırnak and Hakkari after the village burnings and evacuations that took place in 1993-1995.
The camp, which has been embargoed, was also attacked by Turkey many times. In the bombardment on April 15, 2020, 3 women lost their lives and many others were injured. Afterwards, the camp was bombed many times and more civilians lost their lives.
The camp, which Erdogan frequently targets, has been under an embargo for years. Although the camp is officially under a UN mandate, the UN has not taken any action whatsoever so far despite all the attacks and embargoes.
