The bodies of nine tourists killed in a shelling attack in northern Iraq have been flown to Baghdad, as up to 23 survivors were treated in hospital and a political row intensified over who was responsible.
The Iraqi government has accused Turkish forces of an attack on its citizens in a resort near the Kurdish city of Zakho, in the country’s far north. Turkey denied it had launched strikes against civilians and instead claimed that its arch-foe, the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), was responsible.
In phone videos taken at the time of the attack, at a water park where tourists from the plains to the south had sought respite from the baking summer, the sound can be heard of the impact of what appears to have been artillery.
In recent months there have been frequent clashes in the area, a mountainous pocket of Iraq close to the Turkish border in which Turkish troops maintain bases. The presence of the Turkish army on Iraqi soil has long been a point of friction between Baghdad and Ankara, but the Kurdistan regional government of Iraq has facilitated the Turkish presence to help combat the PKK, which it accuses of subverting its authority.
Iraq’s prime minister, Mustafa al-Kadhimi, received some of the bodies at Baghdad airport as anger mounted in the Iraqi capital and in Karbala, the Shia shrine city in central Iraq where many of the victims were from. Coffins carrying the dead were draped with Iraqi flags and flown in on a military aircraft, a sign of the political importance Baghdad has attached to the incident.
Protesters rallied outside Turkish government buildings in both cities, angrily demanding accountability from Ankara. Germany has called for an urgent investigation, while the US and Iran have expressed concern.
Authorities in Erbil were examining whether Turkish gunners had fired at the tourist group after mistaking them for guerrillas, whether PKK members had been in the area, or whether the militia group itself had been responsible. The PKK has a strong presence in the area but is not known to have artillery pieces there.
Survivors said shells started to fall on Wednesday afternoon without warning. Videos showed mass panic among people as explosions echoed.
One tourist, Sajad Hussain, 31, said. “At the beginning when we arrived there we heard bombing from afar but we asked a Kurdish guy there [and] he said not to worry as there is a Turkish military base nearby doing training. We were 150 metres away from the resort [when] we heard the bombing. Two of them directly hit the resort and two others were further away.
“My wife was injured on her leg but it’s light. The authorities should not allow tourists to go to these dangerous places. We are from Babil and we don’t know anything about the risk.”
