Turkish military operations in Nohadra, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, leads to destruction of Assyrian village of Mişka

NOHADRA, Iraq — On the morning of 12 July, 200 Turkish soldiers entered Mişka, an Assyrian village in the Kani Masi District of Nohadra (Duhok) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) via an air insertion. During the operation, four houses were blown up and ten others were destroyed.

Ziya Gorgis, who lived with his family and alongside 13 other families in Mişka, reported that they were forced to flee after the village church was destroyed due to the ongoing conflict between the Turkish occupation army and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK).

“Around 2:30 at night, the village, houses, and church were shelled. There was nothing left of them,” Gorgis told Rudaw Media Network. “I woke up in the morning, went to check it out, and found everything destroyed. We all want a solution. I don’t know what’s going on, but we want a solution.”

The Turkish shelling also destroyed the Barwaria flour factory, owned by Noman Jalal, a Chaldean–Syriac–Assyrian resident, in the village of Derkla Musa Bek. The mill provided employment for seven people.

“I was in Nohadra when someone called me saying that a rocket hit the mill,” Jalal told Rudaw. “We came here and saw that a rocket had indeed struck it. There were between 10 to 15 men, women, and children present. Thank God no one was hurt, and that is the most important thing of all.”