Turkish fighter jets have bombed several locations in Medya Defense Zones, Maxmur and Shengal (Sinjar) in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) tonight.

The bombardment on Maxmur region has targeted civilian settlements from 00.00 to 00.40 local time. The airstrikes targeted the Martyr Rüstem Cudi refugee camp, Mount Qarachok and Mishtenur area.

While residents of the camp left for the scene of the aggression, their convoy was also hit by the continued bombardment.

Concurrent attacks by Turkish warplanes targeted the Medya Defense Zones and Shengal.

According to initial reports from local sources in Maxmur Camp, the heavy shelling did not result in a loss of life but started a fire in the fields where civilians graze their cattle.

Reports are coming through of ongoing aerial reconnaissance activity over the region in the wake of the attacks.

Since 17 July 2019, the KDP and its peshmergas have arbitrarily restricted the freedom of movement of the more than 12,000 residents of Maxmur Camp. Nobody is allowed through the checkpoint, an entry and exit ban is imposed to the entire area of the autonomous region. The camp is de facto cut off from the outside world.

The security forces of the KDP justify the embargo as a repressive measure for the killing of an agent of the Turkish secret service MIT. Osman Köse, Turkish vice consul and intelligence officer for southern Kurdistan, was shot dead in a restaurant in Hewlêr on 17 July 2019. The embargo was imposed on Maxmur almost immediately after the killing, which was then attributed to sympathizers of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Security authorities presented a group of men who had no connection to the refugee camp as the allegedly responsible for the attack. Two of them, Muhammed Beşiksiz and Mazlum Dağ - who refused to sign the prepared confessions - were sentenced to death by a court in Hewlêr (Erbil) in February. Nevertheless, the autonomous government insists on the embargo on Maxmur.

Maxmur is home to people who were forced to leave their villages in the Botan region of northern Kurdistan in the 1990s due to the repression of the Turkish state. After years of odyssey and peregrination in various camps, the refugees finally settled on the edge of the desert in 1998. Today Maxmur is a small town, which despite poverty, constant threats and attacks, is a place of peace and collective self-determination.

The Turkish government has long called the refugee camp, which is officially under the protection of the United Nations, a "military camp" and a place of retreat for the PKK and calls for its closure.

There are repeated fatal attacks on Maxmur, so much so, that even one day after the embargo was imposed, the camp was bombed by the Turkish Air Forces. Two people were injured. The KDP justifies these attacks with the influence of the PKK, which it said, stays there. The Turkish state legitimizes its attacks by referring to these statements. Barzani's party is giving Turkey supremacy in south Kurdistan little by little. At the end of the year, the KDP international legal aid coordinator even claimed that there would be "military groups" in Maxmur that would not allow "organizations or elected local government agencies to return to do people's day-to-day administration and provide basic services."

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