Guided by locals, government electricians were sent to the area to resolve the issue, when the incident took place.
“TNT was under a rock. [...] When our teams wanted to pass the TNT exploded,” Duhok’s governor, Ali Tatar said at a press conference from the hospital where they were being treated.
Hussein Sleman, 55, and Ibrahim Mohammed, 69, from the village of Ravina in Kani Masi “went to guide the electricity office [people] when this happened to them,” Tahir Mohammed told Rudaw’s Naif Ramadhan.
Civilians in Duhok province have told Rudaw of their terror after Turkey launched a new cross-border military offensive on Friday night against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), dubbed Operation Claw-Lightning and Claw-Thunderbolt. The Metina and Avashin areas of Duhok’s mountainous frontier with Turkey are the focus of the incursion.
Head of the hospital in Duhok, Abdullah Ibrahim, told Ramadhan that “it’s true they were heavily injured, but their lives are not in danger to some extent,” adding that there are two injured being treated at the hospital.
Scores of civilians have been killed in Turkey’s operations and more than 500 villages have been emptied, their residents displaced during decades of conflict against the PKK, a Kurdish armed group which has bases in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region.
“This war between the PKK and Turkey is damaging our people … we are constantly calling for them to take their problems to their own country. If it’s an agreement, dialogue or negotiation or whatever it is, even if they resort back to fighting, take it back to your country,” the governor said during the press conference, referring to Turkey.
According to the Turkish Ministry of Defense, the total number of PKK fighters “neutralized” during the operation reached 37 today. The Turkish government uses the term “neutralized” to denote death, injury, or capture of its adversaries.
According to figures by the People’s Defense Forces (HPG), the armed wing of the PKK, three Turkish soldiers were killed on Monday and another was killed on Tuesday.
The Turkish army used “toxic gasses" on Mamreso Hill in Avashin in Duhok province, PKK-linked media ANF claimed, without providing evidence. The outlet added that the incident happened when Turkish Special Forces were met with fierce resistance as they tried to enter guerrilla tunnels and bases on the hilltop.
The PKK is an armed Kurdish movement that has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. Turkish forces frequently conduct air and ground operations tens of kilometres across the border, targeting alleged positions of the PKK, which has its bases in the Kurdistan Region’s mountains. Turkey has established dozens of outposts inside the Kurdistan Region since the 1990s.
Last summer, Turkey conducted operations Claw-Eagle and Claw-Tiger and said it had established 37 “military points” in the Kurdistan Region.
