Nine people were killed and at least 23 injured when the Turkish state bombed a picnic site in the village of Perex in the southern Kurdish district of Zakho on 20 July. The victims include one-year-old Zahra and twelve-year-old Sara. Seven of them had come to Zakho from Baghdad for holidays, two men came from Karbala.

The Parliament of Iraq has convened for a special session today to discuss the deadly attack with the participation of the Chief of Staff, Minister of Defence, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Joint Operations Deputy Commander Abdulemir Shemeri.

Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein stated that, according to the information and documents they have, there are no PKK forces in the area where the attack took place.

The Joint Operations Deputy Commander Abdulemir Shemeri said during the parliamentary session that the attack on the village of Perex had been carried out by the Turkish state forces with 155 mm cannons, from a 7 km distance to the scene.

While Turkey denied involvement and blamed the PKK for the deadly attack which has triggered strong reactions from many states, Fuad Hussein told the press after the massacre that as a result of the investigations carried out by military experts, it was determined that the attack had been carried out by Turkey.

According to the Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT), the artillery fire came from the Turkish military base Xamtir in Xatîrê. CPT representative Kamaran Osman told the Mezopotamya Agency (MA) that they went to the village after the bombing: "We talked to witnesses and wounded people and learned from them that four shots were fired. They confirmed to us that all these four shots were fired from the Turkish military base Xamtir."