A civilian was injured in an artillery attack by the Turkish army near the southern Kurdish town of Batufa on Friday evening. The 54-year-old was staying at his home in the village of Evleh when he was hit in the left arm by shrapnel from a shell. He was taken to a hospital in Zakho district, west of Batufa. His condition is stable, and after outpatient treatment in the emergency room, he was able to leave the hospital.  

Batufa is located about 20 kilometres from the Turkish border and administratively belongs to the Duhok governorate in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). There are repeated attacks by the Turkish army on the region, carried out not only by border guards, but also by Turkish occupation troops in the invasion campaign that has been ongoing since April. Ankara legitimises these cross-border attacks in the KRI with a "threat to national security" by the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK). However, under the guise of "fighting terrorism", civilian settlement areas are bombed, often by targeted shelling.

In July, the Turkish army attacked the summer resort in the village of Perex (Parakh) near Zakho with four artillery shells from a base in Southern Kurdistan. Nine people were killed and more than twenty others were injured. They were Arab holidaymakers from the south of Iraq. Among the fatalities were children, the youngest being only one year old. In Batufa, two Iraqis died about a year ago as a result of the bombing of their vehicle. At the end of 2021, a woman was injured in an attack on her village in Batufa.