A Turkish drone bombed the Martyr Rustem Cudi Refugee Camp in the town of Maxmur in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq at 09:25 this morning. The attack left a woman injured.

Residents of the camp gathered in front of the Association of Martyrs’ Families and condemned the attack. Yusuf Kara, co-chair of the Maxmur People’s Assembly, made a statement and noted that this was the second attack carried out by the Turkish state against Maxmur this week.

Kara stated: “The first attack was directed against the mosque in the camp, and the second against the house of Rojhat Salih. The vile and vicious attack carried out this morning left an elderly woman injured. We announce to friend and foe that the fascist state of Turkey attacks us ravingly and knows no limits anymore. 70 percent of this camp, which has been affiliated to the Iraqi state for 30 years, is made up of women, minors and elderly. The atrocities perpetrated in Kurdistan are not ordinary events. We call on the Kurdistan Region, the Iraqi state and the international community to stop the Turkish state’s attacks against the Kurds.”

The co-chair of the Maxmur People’s Assembly continued: “Officials appear on TV every day and talk about massacres and deaths of children at the hands of Israel. These very people, however, do not see the acts of the fascist-genocidal Turkish state. We see how states call on Israel to stop attacks and killings, while the Iraqi state, under the roof of which we live, does not see or raise a voice against the Turkish attacks against Martyr Rustem Cudi Refugee Camp, which has been attacked twice in a week. This is an unfortunate matter that raises question marks.”

Maxmur Camp is home to about 12,000 people with official UN refugee status. These are people who were displaced from their villages in Turkish territory thirty years ago and their descendants. Members of almost every family have died in the Kurdish liberation struggle, and many are still fighting with the guerrillas in the mountains for a dignified and free life with their own identity.

The camp, which is officially under the protection of the UNHCR, is described by Turkey as a "hotbed of terror" and has been continuously attacked by drones for years. The Barzani family, which collaborates with the Turkish state, imposed an embargo on the camp in 2019. Only a few years earlier, KDP chairman Massoud Barzani had visited Maxmur to thank the residents and the PKK for their successful efforts in defending Kurdistan against ISIS. In 2014, the ISIS hordes were just outside Hewlêr (Erbil), the seat of government of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.