Kurdistan

On the 23 January 2019, the Turkish military killed six people in a cross-border bombing near the Kurdish town of Deraluk.  Across Iraqi Kurdistan, many shared in the devastation of the families who lost loved ones, and the attack sparked outrage against the Turkish military presence in nearby Shiladze.

On 25 January 2019, we were on our way to visit Halania, a Kurdish village where a Turkish bombing ended 19-year-old Dunya Rasheed’s life. Our team has been to Halania many times over the past months and written several articles trying to raise the voices of Dunya’s family in hopes that something will help stop these acts of violence against the people of Iraqi Kurdistan. Each time we visit, we are welcomed warmly however the mood is always somber. As the team’s translator and also one of our Kurdish team members, these visits are especially hard on me. I have to soak in every word because I want to translate for my team in a way that is both accurate, but also conveys the emotion of the speaker. I want people to be able to retell these stories in a way that will make others care about our partners’ struggle and my country’s pain.

Pray for the light of liberating love to infuse CPTers in the field, their partners, CPT support staff and the Christian Peacemaker Team constituency this season as they struggle with systemic oppression, violence, financial difficulties and loss. 

Aklima speaks to a CPTer about the impacts of cross-border bombings on her village. Peace is a hard thing to write about.  I think it is currently experienced in fleeting, single-frame moments, in Iraqi Kurdistan just as in most of the the world. I see these single frames of peace in our partners’ stories.

On 30 June Dunya Rasheed, a high school student from Halania, Iraqi Kurdistan went to harvest nuts with her family. The village lands of Halania are in close proximity to a Turkish base constructed within the international borders of Iraqi Kurdistan. Turkish soldiers shot a rocket directly into a group of thirty villagers harvesting crops on their own lands. This attack ended Dunya’s life.