Kurdish officials urge U.N. action saying Turkey targeting refugee camp

Turkey is targeting a refugee camp in northern Iraq, launching bombing runs and flying drones overhead to intimidate residents, Kurdish officials said, according to the Morning Star newspaper.

The United Nations must ensure a blockade imposed by the administration governing northern Iraq is lifted to allow food and medical aid to be distributed to its 12,000 residents, the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) said, the Morning Star reported on Thursday.

The camp is a “permanent target” of the Turkish state, the KNK said. “Refugees are supposed to be protected as a vulnerable population, not target practice for an invading force’s bombing campaigns.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said early this month that Turkey would clean up the camp as a U.N. member if the organisation failed to do so. A recent Turkish airstrike killed three residents of the camp, the Morning Star said.

Most of the camp’s resident fled the predominantly Kurdish southeast of Turkey during the 1990s.

The bombing of refugee camps is illegal under international law and the U.N.’s silence has led Mahkmour’s residents to claim that world powers are colluding against them, the newspaper said.

United Nations spokesman Firas al-Khateeb said the U.N. has no role in the management of the camp, adding that it was the responsibility of Iraq’s Interior Ministry, the Morning Star reported.

The official said that the U.N. has not received any reports of a missile strike on the camp, despite widespread media coverage and the Turkish armed forces admitting to the bombing. Turkey said it targeted members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the military operation.