ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkish border guards opened fire on two young Kurdish men on the Kurdistan Region side of the border on Tuesday, injuring them, the family of a victim told Rudaw English. They are receiving treatment at hospitals in Erbil province. From the village of Mawan (Samanli) in Turkey’s Hakkari province, 17-year-old Celil Ekinci had crossed the border into Iraq to find horses of his that ran loose. “We were in Barmiza [village], looking for our horses. There were three of us. The soldiers began firing at us - injuring two of us. They also killed our horses,” Ekinci told Rudaw English in a video from the hospital, referring to a border village in the Kurdistan Region’s Barzan area. The third man was a ways behind the two men that were shot, and came to their assistance. The teenager is receiving treatment at the Emergency Management Center in the Kurdistan Region’s capital for a bullet that entered his side and came out of his chest. The hospital management did not allow Rudaw English to enter the building. When asked if he saw the soldiers firing at them, Ekinci replied: “yes, I am totally sure of that because I saw them.” The border areas across both countries regularly feature clashes between Turkey and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK is an armed group fighting for increased rights for Turkey's Kurdish minority, and has bases in the Kurdistan Region's mountains. It is regarded as a terrorist organization by Ankara. Sehap Sendul, a 21-year-old shepherd from Barmiza, was shot in the hand and has lost fingers, according to Ekinci’s family. They say he is being treated at Erbil’s Mergasor Hospital. Sendul was helping Ekinci bring the horses back across the border, but before they could cross the small river that separates the two countries, they were met with fire. “People have always crossed the border in the past,” Sait Dede, a parliamentarian for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) representing Hakkari province, told Rudaw English, noting that the majority of the villagers in the Turkish side of the border have social connections with the Kurdistan Region side and visit one another regularly. Soldiers did not provide assistance to the injured men, causing them to lose blood, according to the MP. Only after an hour did villagers come to their assistance. Turkish soldiers are seen in a video, submitted to Rudaw English, seemingly refusing to help the injured whose relatives had arrived there. The family members plead with the soldiers to provide them with a vehicle to transport the injured. Instead, the soldiers seem to have accused the family of being terrorists. “I am not a terrorist. If I were a terrorist, I would fire at you,” one family member is heard shouting back in the video. Derecik, the district where Mawan is located, is known as a hub for cross border smuggling. “Due to security reasons, people are not allowed to plant anything or raise livestock. They also live in a dire economic condition,” said Dede. “Therefore, sometimes Rubarok’s [Derecik] residents go to Southern Kurdistan [Kurdistan Region] to bring cigarettes, tea seeds and sugar. This has existed for a long time.” In August 2019, Ekinci’s 14-year-old cousin, Vedat Ekinci, was shot dead by Turkish border guards in the district while trying to return from Kurdistan Region with a number of family members. A family member familiar with the case of the child, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told Rudaw English that the perpetrators were not punished, adding that they were blackmailed to prevent them from filing lawsuits against the soldiers. The source also said that they have been warned by Turkish authorities not to publicize the injury of the two young men, and threatened with reprisals. He also said that several other people have been shot in recent years, including some “who were on their own lands.” Kemal Ekinci, father of the 17-year-old, told Rudaw English in front of the Emergency Management Center that his son is a victim of Turkish government’s oppression, saying his son is innocent and “only wanted to return his horses.” “If they were holding a weapon, it would be normal to fire at them. They were not armed.” He added that other members of their family had been fired at by soldiers in similar incidents in the past. Asked what explanation Turkish authorities have provided them for the incident, the father replied, “Turkish soldiers say that they have not fired at them.” Nahit Eren, Chairman of Diyarbakir Bar Association, said in a tweet on Wednesday that “this is the third violation [by soldiers] at the zero point of the border in the last two years,” adding that they will follow up the incident. Turkish authorities have not commented on the incident, but the Hakkari governor’s office said in a statement on Wednesday that they had confiscated thousands of packs of cigarettes in Derecik district, arresting an alleged smuggler. The large quantity of cigarettes and type of vehicle suggests that the two incidents are not related.
