Geolocation
Airwars assessment
Three civilians were reported killed in an alleged Turkish airstrike on Sidan village, Amedi district on June 19 th 2020, according to local media reports.
Darkamazi.net named the three victims as Aazad Mahdi Shji, Damhat Omar Ormari and Mukhlis Adam Kukri. The source said that “on Friday, June 19th, 2020, the warplanes of the occupying Turkish state had targeted the areas of Niruh-Rikan and Barwari Bala, and that three martyrs from the people of Southern Kurdistan were near their villages.
Two citizens were killed in the vicinity of Sidan village in the Nairoh-Rikan region, and another citizen in Barwari Bala district, in the vicinity of the village of “Darkla Messi Bey”, was killed as a result of the Turkish shelling of the area.
Mahdi Rekani, the father of Azad Mahdi who was among the victims, said that “His son Azad Mahdi aged 26, and two friends, Mukhlis Adam and Deman Omar both aged 28, all construction workers, were heading to Shaji, a village in Sheladiz sub district, for a picnic. Rekani, who had been speaking to his son on the phone, said that between 10:00 and 11:30 a.m., Mahdi parked his car on a small road outside a village near Sida village. As they were walking from the car, an airstrike killed all three.”
Inzar, Mukhlis’ brother, told Rudaw English he was informed at 1 pm that Mukhlis had been killed in a Turkish airstrike. Inzar went to the site where he found the dead bodies of his brother and one of his friends. Upon returning later he said he found the body of the another friend.
“When I reached the scene, I found out that two [bombs] hit the area – one hit a [pickup] vehicle and the other near it. However, no one was in the vehicle. There was a mobile phone in the vehicle, it belonged to one of the martyrs,” Rekani told Rudaw.
While collecting the bodies of his brother and his friends, Inzar said he saw PKK fighters arrive at the scene to retrieve their two dead colleagues.
Milat Rekani, who recorded footage of the aftermath, told Rudaw English: “I saw two other dead bodies which belonged to the PKK,” Rekani recounted, adding that the dead bodies of the PKK fighters were “charred.”
In April 2021, the Guardian published a piece on Turkey attacks in Iraq and interviewed the family of Mukhis Adam, whose daughter, three months old by the time of the interview, was born after he was killed.
According to the paper, “Adam’s car was hit by a Turkish airstrike while he was on the way to a picnic in June last year.”
His family burned the photographs they had of him in an act of grief.
Adam Gnych, who reported on the incident, provided Airwars with an excerpt from an interview with Dildar Abdy, Mukhlis’ brother: “On our way to the site of the bombing we saw a car coming the other way, we stopped it, there were two bodies in the car and they had a car license plate. We looked at the number and realised it was our (family) car. The body of Mukhlis was not inside the vehicle so we came back to Sheladze to check at the hospital. The people of Sheladze started a search for Muhlis’ body, due to the intensity of the explosion his body has been thrown a long way from the blast site… Everybody liked Mukhlis, nobody had any problems with him. He tried to work in order to support the family. He was a giving man and very easy to deal with… He studied until 9th grade (15 years old), he left because we were poor and we couldn’t pay for his studies.”
The incident occured in the morning.
The victims were named as:
Summary
Sources (4) [ collapse]
Media
from sources (2) [ collapse]
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The family of Mukhlis Adam are seen at his grave in Sheladze. He was allegedly killed in a Turkish attack on June 19th, 2020. (via the Guardian).
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Mukhlis Adam's daughter is seen surrounded by her aunts and uncles. She was born after he was killed in an allegedly Turkish airstrike. (via the Guardian).
Geolocation notes
Reports of the incident mention the village of Sidan (سيدان), for which the generic coordinates are: 37.086619, 43.930892. Due to limited satellite imagery and information available to Airwars, we were unable to verify the location further.