SULAIMANI (ESTA) — At least three people were killed on Tuesday when a Turkish air raid hit a clinic in Sinjar, security and medical sources said.
A Turkish drone targeted a makeshift clinic in the village of Sekaina in Sinjar district at 02:30 p.m., Esta Media Network reporter said.
Sinjar’s deputy mayor Jalal Khalef told AFP that the air raid “totally destroyed” the clinic in Sinjar, a region Ankara regularly targets in operations against the Kurdish fighters affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
AFP cited a doctor in Sinjar as saying at least three people were killed and five others were wounded.
The raid consisted of three drone strikes, another official told AFP.
The strikes came one day after a Turkish drone bombed a vehicle in Sinjar, killing three Yazidi fighters including a local chief of the Popular Mobilization forces.
Among the wounded was another PKK official, a member of the Yazidi minority, according to AFP.
He was transferred for treatment to the Sekaina facility that was hit Tuesday, according to a Yazidi activist contacted by AFP. The PKK official had survived.
Images shared online by purported residents showed a basement and clinic reduced to rubble and black smoke rising into the air.
Turkish forces routinely conduct operations against PKK bases in rugged mountains in the Kurdistan Region.
On Friday, a Turkish airstrike killed a 50-year-old man in Disheshe village in Kani Mase sub-district, northeast of Duhok.
Turkish troops have maintained a network of bases in Iraq since the mid-1990s under security agreements struck with Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Iraq regularly decries violations of its sovereignty, and has repeatedly summoned the Turkish ambassador over Ankara’s cross-border military campaign.
But Iraq, which counts on Turkey as an important commercial partner, has refrained from taking punitive measures.
The Turkish offensive in the Kurdistan Region – particularly aerial bombing – has prompted hundreds of villagers to flee their homes.
*This story was updated at 08:25 p.m. EBL time
