Iraq: Kurdish villagers abandon homes due to Turkey's bombardment

W/S Empty streets of Sharanish
C/U Damaged house
C/U Damaged house
W/S Empty street
W/S Men setting fire
C/U Fire
M/S Men talking
C/U Hands
SOT, Ameer Nisaan, local resident (Arabic): "We fled the villages due to the Turkish bombardment. The reason is the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] fighters. It happened not once or twice. It’s been going on for quite a while. From 2007, they used to do it once a year, sometimes every two years, but now they do it frequently. And now they attack the centre of the village. They do it intentionally. In the past they used to bomb the fringe of the mountain and cross-fire above us."
W/S Abandoned house
C/U Locked door
W/S Empty streets
M/S Abandoned houses
C/U Damaged building
C/U Damaged building
M/S Adeeb Esaa removing broken glass
C/U Adeeb Esaa removing broken glass
SOT, Adeeb Esaa, local resident (Arabic): "We were sitting at the house, around 10 or 10:30 they hit the house of my uncle directly. The glass of the window was smashed. So we fled the villages next thing in the morning."
M/S Broken glass
W/S Abandoned houses
SOT, Zervan Musa, mayor of Darkare sub-district, eastern Zakho in Derker Ajam (Arabic): "Due to enduring clashes between the PKK forces and the Turkish government on the border, which contains 25 villages that always suffer, because there had been an outpost of the PKK. So the Turks always bombard, which leads to severe damage that pushes the people around the area to leave. The villagers fled to the centre of the county, and in the area around Zakho the crops had been damaged, which was hard to be contained."
W/S Church
C/U Church bell
C/U Sign reading (Arabic) 'St. Qariqos Church. The Chaldean martyr of Sharanish'
SCRIPT
Dozens of villages have been abandoned in the Zakho district of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, close to the border with Turkey, due to the ongoing conflict between the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] and Turkish forces.
Footage filmed in Sharanish village on Thursday shows empty streets and damaged houses.
"We fled the villages due to the Turkish bombardment. The reason is the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] fighters. It happened not once or twice. It’s been going on for quite a while. From 2007, they used to do it once a year, sometimes every two years, but now they do it frequently," said Ameer Nisaan, one of the villagers.
Zervan Musa, the mayor of Darkare sub-district in eastern Zakho, said that the 25 villages located at the border continuously suffer from the "enduring clashes between the PKK forces and Turkish government."
"So the Turkish always bombard, which leads to severe damage that pushes the people around the area to leave. The villagers fled to the centre of the county," he added.
The region has reportedly come under 600 bombings over the past two years threatening access to 20 villages.