Turkey mourns airstrike deaths
- 12 years ago
Digging graves for the dozens killed in a cross-border attack by Turkey on Thursday.
Thirty-five civilian smugglers - most under the age of 30 - from this impoverished border village of Ortasu were killed in northern Iraq after Turkish warplanes mistook them for Kurdish militants.
Smuggling fuel, cigarettes and other goods from Iraqi villages is an important source of income in border provinces like this one.
This woman, who lost three nephews, condemned the attack as a massacre.
"They were students", she says. "They were travelling to Iraq to buy food supplies like sugar and planned to sell it here to cover their school expenses. But this is what happened when they returned. This is a massacre. It is a shame how cheap human life can be."
Ankara has vowed not to allow a cover-up of the incident which is dominating Turkish headlines and threatens to derail a Turkish-Kurdish consensus for a potential new constitution.
Turkish warplanes regularly strike military targets along the Iraqi border in a long-running battle against Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK guerillas.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK took up arms in 1984.
Sunita Rappai, Reuters
Thirty-five civilian smugglers - most under the age of 30 - from this impoverished border village of Ortasu were killed in northern Iraq after Turkish warplanes mistook them for Kurdish militants.
Smuggling fuel, cigarettes and other goods from Iraqi villages is an important source of income in border provinces like this one.
This woman, who lost three nephews, condemned the attack as a massacre.
"They were students", she says. "They were travelling to Iraq to buy food supplies like sugar and planned to sell it here to cover their school expenses. But this is what happened when they returned. This is a massacre. It is a shame how cheap human life can be."
Ankara has vowed not to allow a cover-up of the incident which is dominating Turkish headlines and threatens to derail a Turkish-Kurdish consensus for a potential new constitution.
Turkish warplanes regularly strike military targets along the Iraqi border in a long-running battle against Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK guerillas.
More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK took up arms in 1984.
Sunita Rappai, Reuters