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For Kurds In N. Iraq, A Familiar Foreboding
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In February, their calculus changed. Shells began to fly over their village, pounding mountainsides, valleys and farms. Since then, Turkey has bombed this patch of Iraq's border at least 97 times, with as many as 800 shells and six aerial assaults, said Col. Hussein Thamer, the regional head of Iraq's border guards. No Iraqis were killed, but several were injured, he said.
[an error occurred while processing this directive]"The Turks always say their target is the PKK," said Thamer, whose men patrol 125 miles of Iraq's border with Turkey. "But since February, nobody from the PKK has been injured."
In the office of Aziz, the mayor of Batifa, colorful folders are stacked on the floor, each an accounting of damage caused by the shelling. So far, he said, 1,100 farmers have filed complaints. One farmer lost 300 apple trees, each one at least 20 years old, he said.
On Monday, an hour after the last female residents left Deshtetek, the remaining men gathered inside a house, where a rifle rested against a sofa. All stayed behind to protect their lands and property.
"We have no choice," said Salim Michael Warda, 39, a farmer. "All we own in our lives is here."
Since the attacks, the village school has shut down because teachers were afraid to commute to the border. Their pastor also left. The men can no longer fish in the river. They said they have thousands of dollars worth of ripe walnuts they cannot take to market.
"Now, we are afraid to go out -- we can't even go get wood," said Zarro Kutto Zarro, 53. "If we go out, they will hit us."
A few days ago, at least 20 shells struck the lands around Deshtetek. One tore a six-foot-wide hole in the narrow, buckling road leading out of the village.
Three miles away along the same road, which coils through a line of oatmeal-colored mountains stretching from the border, the Muslim village of Parekh sits silent, save for the howling wind. Once there were 400 residents. Now, there are six.
"They fled because the news was bad," said Sabria Yusef Amar, frail and angular-faced, in her 50s.
She has lived alone since her family fled. Shells struck the mountainside above their house, but Amar refused to leave the village where she was raised. She was tired of running, she said.
"Whatever God has decided, it will happen," she said.
