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Hundreds displaced by Iranian, Turkish bombardments of Kurdish rebels
Hundreds of Kurdish civilians in the far north of Iraq have fled their homes because of the recent bombardments by both Turkey and Iran against Kurdish rebels based in the remote Qandil mountain area.
Aid workers say more than 650 families have fled their villages, and many are now living in primitive conditions without shelter or sufficient food in a humanitarian crisis that has drawn little attention from the authorities in Baghdad.
At the Dara Kouta camp at the foot of the mountains east of Su, 530 families are living huddled together, some without tents because resources are limited, said Hoshyar Mustafa, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Iraqi government has given each family 1 million dinars–about $850–but the sum is not enough to cover the needs of the families, he said.
For the camp's residents, the bombardments are another cause for despair after the brutal Anfal campaign, waged more than 20 years ago by Saddam Hussein against Kurdish villages.