A father and son were killed and another civilian was injured after an alleged Turkish airstrike near the town of Deraluk, Amedi district, on May 30th, 2020, according to local media reports.
The victims were Jalal Nuradin, 60, and his son Ahmed Nuradin, 32, reported K24, Christian Peacemaker Teams and Ahval.
Khalil Nerway, a relative of the victims, said an additional person was injured in the strike. “We have not yet seen the wounded, but we are told that his health is stable”, Mr. Nerway told Rudaw. Jalal, a retired Peshmerga, and his son were farming ancestral land “to make ends meet for their families”, according to the source. Neither of the bodies had been returned to the family at the time of reporting due to the difficulties in accessing the site of the bombing according to Mr. Nerway.
K24, Christian Peacemaker Teams and Ahval reported that the strike took place in the village of Hetuta.
Rudaw quoted unnamed officials as saying the strike targeted “suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) positions in the Deralok sub-district of Amedi, close to the border with Turkey”. The attack took place at 09:30 am, according to Rudaw reporter Nasir Ali.
On May 30th 2020, the official Twitter account of the Ministry of National Defense of the Republic of Turkey Tweeted: “Two PKK terrorists, who were identified by means of reconnaissance and surveillance in the Avasin region of northern Iraq, were neutralized by an air operation. Our operations will continue until the last terrorist is neutralized.”
Mohammed Salim Nerweyi, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Deralok, told Rudaw that the deceased were civilians.
“No politician has even come to talk to us and offer condolences” Ahmad Nuradeen Muhiyadeen, Jalal’s brother, told The Guardian on April 4th, 2021.
Adam Gnych, who reported on the incident, provided Airwars with a transcript of an interview with Ahmed Nuradeen Muhiyadeen, Jalal’s brother:
“When we left for the trip there were four of us – me, Jalal, Ahmed and one of our neighbours. In the evening we went and stayed in the valley (the Rashava valley). Before dawn we set off, on the other side of the mountain we split the group, Jelal, Ahmed and our neighbour went one way, I went another way. I collected some mushrooms and some grasses; in the evening I came back home to Deraluk. The others stayed there for three days. On the fourth day, when they intended to come back to Deraluk, they were targeted. My neighbour told me that he found a beehive, he told Jalal and Ahmad to wait for him and drink some tea, on his way to the beehives he heard two bombings. When he returned to the place he saw that Jalal and Ahmed had been killed along with their horses. The area is very far away and surrounded by mountains so it’s hard to get a signal (telephone)… the incident took place at 8:30 am at 10 am we were contacted and told that both of them had been killed…. Jalal was a peshmerga before he retired. He couldn’t afford to sustain his family, our economic situation was very hard. Ahmed was jobless so they were obliged to risk their lives by going to the mountains to collect grasses and mushrooms to sell in the local bazaar.”
According to Mr Muhiyadeen, Ahmad had studied until the 6th grade, at which point he was forced to leave school due to the family’s economic situation. “He was so smart and so clever, he knew as much as a teacher. He was always reading the Quran and he liked playing football with his friends… I want this conflict to stop, neither the PKK nor Turkey have any reason to be here, they are just here to ruin our lives, we hope this war stops so that no more civilians will become victims like my brother and nephew.”
According to the family, Jalal was a father of eight (six sons and two daughters), Ahmed had two wives and three children (two sons one daughter).
The incident occured at 08:30:00 local time.
