Turks hit the Sinjar’s hospital in Iraq, eight killed – AFP [video]

By TOC On Aug 18, 2021

BAGHDAD, ($1= 1,459.12 Iraqi Dinars) – Despite protests from Baghdad, Turkish forces are continuing their operations in northern Iraq, where they are hunting down members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party [PKK], an organization considered terrorist in Ankara [but also in the United States and the European Union, editor’s note]. Regularly, they carry out airstrikes against positions held by this group in the Sinjar region, where the Yazidi community is established [which was oppressed by the Islamic State, note], as well as in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan generally brushes aside criticism of operations in Iraqi territory. “Turkey intends to deal with the PKK if Iraq is not in a position to do so,” he pleaded.

However, the PKK is not the only organization targeted by Turkish forces. His allies are too, as was the case on August 16.

That day, a senior official of the Sinjar Resistance Units, predominantly Yazidi and close to the PKK, Saeed Hassan Saeed was killed by a raid by Turkish forces in the Sinjar region. He was not the only objective … because a cadre of the Kurdish independence organization was also injured in the strike. And then he has admitted to a former school turned into a clinic, located precisely in the village of Sekine.

The clinic which was, in turn, targeted the next day, presumably by Turkish drones, said AFP, relying on the testimony of Jalal Khalef Bisso, a local elected official, and the statements of a “senior Iraqi officer”. An initial report showed at least three people killed. In the end, the raid left eight people dead, including, according to the Sinjar administration, four employees and four fighters from the 80th Brigade. As for the PKK official who had been wounded the day before, he was not among the victims.

As of August 18, the Iraqi government has still not reacted to the Turkish raid on a health facility. Besides the violation of Iraqi sovereignty, it could be considered a war crime.

Indeed, the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War specifies, in its article 18, that “civilian hospitals organized to provide care to the wounded, sick, infirm and women in childbirth cannot, under no circumstances, be the object of attack”.

And its article 19 stipulates that “the protection due to civilian hospitals can only cease if it is used to commit, outside of humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy” and that this “protection will only cease. after a summons fixing, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable period which has remained without effect”. Finally, the text specifies that “will not be considered as a harmful act the fact that wounded or sick soldiers are treated in these hospitals or that there are portable weapons and ammunition withdrawn from these soldiers and not having still paid to the competent service”.