A Turkish drone strike on Makhmour (Mexmûr) refugee camp, northern Iraq, injured three women on Tuesday 10 September. All three were members of the Peace Mothers movement.
The Peace Mothers movement emerged after the 1980 military coup d’etat in Turkey, with the mothers giving voice to their children who had disappeared or been imprisoned and tortured in the Diyarbakır (Amed) Military Prison, in which the majority of prisoners and detainees were Kurdish. The Peace Mothers Initiative was later formed in 1996. During their struggle, the Peace Mothers have been subjected to violence, having been detained, physically assaulted, imprisoned and killed over the years.
Following the Turkish drone attack on 10 September, the Peace Mothers and the Makhmour local council organised a rally on 11 September in front of the targeted house, which belongs to the Peace Mothers initiative.
Peace Mother Medîne Hilalî spoke at the event, recalling the history of the Makhmour camp. “The people of Makhmour were forced to become refugees because of the violence and brutality of the Turkish state. In the beginning, the Makhmour camp was not a place to live, but our mothers and children made it a place to live”, she emphasised.
Hilalî also rejected the claims by Turkish media that there are Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) guerilla fighters staying in the camp, saying, “there is only our people here, we are all women, children and elderly people”. This statement was strengthened by Filiz Budak, co-chair of the Makhmour People’s Council, who explained, “The HPG officially announced in 2023 that they had withdrawn from this region. The governments of Iraq and Turkey are also aware of this.”
Calling on Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and former president of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Hilalî explained that the people of Makhmour and Barzani have been competing for seats within the Iraqi parliament. She directly called on him, saying “take the parliament seat and use it to represent 40 million people like Öcalan does!”
Expressing her anger, Hilalî said: “But you sold the Makhmour camp nine times for your own advantages, so if you cannot talk for 40 million Kurds, don’t say that you are their leader!” Mentioning the Peshmerga soldiers which belong to Barzani’s KDP, Hilalî said, “If you don’t pay them for just one month, they will all leave you [Barzani]”. She also highlighted how the Peshmerga forces did not protect the Makhmour Camp when it was attacked by ISIS in 2014. A recent report had highlighted the key role played by PKK guerilla fighters in defending Makhmour against ISIS in 2014.
Ending her speech, she stated, “If the people of Makhmour wouldn’t have protected Erbil (Hewlêr), it would have become the capital of ISIS.” She called on all Kurdish people to raise their voices and say: “It has been enough, Kurdish mothers and children should not cry anymore.”
