Life inside Iraq’s ‘Forbidden Zone’

There is a picturesque village in the mountain of Kurdistan, Iraq.

For the generations, the villagers have made living pomegranates, almonds and peaches, and have eaten in the surrounding forests for wild fruits and spices.

But in the border with Turkey, the SergeLE, which is 16 km (10 miles), is surrounded by a Turkish military base that is ignited across the slope.

One is half the western ridge, settled on the village, and the other in the east is under construction.

At least seven people have been built in the last two years, including a small dam that regulates Sergele’s water supply for the past two years, and has limited the villagers.

“This is 100% of the Kurdish occupation. [Iraqi Kurdistan] Farmer Sherwan Sherwan Sergelli, 50, said he lost access to some of his land.

“Turkish ruined it.”

Sergele is currently at risk of being dragged into locals, which is a big land in northern Iraq, which is affected by the war with Turkey, a Kurded militant group that has rebelled in southern Turkey in 1984.

The forbidden zone is almost overall in the Iraq border with Türkiye and is depth up to 40 km (25 miles).

The Community Peacemaker team, headquartered in Kurddestan, Iraq, said that hundreds of civilians were killed by drones and air strikes inside and outside the area where hundreds of civilians were banned. According to the 2020 Kurdish Parliamentary Report, thousands of people were forced to be forced in their land, and the entire village was empty by conflict.

Sergele is now effective in the forefront of the Turkish war with PKK.

When the BBC World Service Eye Investigations Team visited this area, Turkish aircraft chased the mountains surrounding the village and eradicated the PKK armed forces in the northern Iraq caves and tunnels.

Most of the Sergele was burned by bombardment.

“The more base you have, the worse for us.”

Turkey has rapidly increased its military location in the forbidden areas in recent years, but this expansion has not been publicly known until now.

The BBC found that as of December 2024, the Turkish army had built at least 136 fixed military installations throughout Northern Iraq as of December 2024, using satellite images that were evaluated by experts and confirmed with open source content.

According to the BBC’s analysis, Turkey can now control Iraq land of more than 2,000 square kilometers (772 square miles) through a huge military base network, the BBC said.

The satellite image shows that the Turkish army has built at least 660 km (410 miles) of the road connecting the facility. The supply route caused the deforestation and continued to imprint on the mountains of the area.

Some of the base dates back to the 1990s, while after 89%of 2018, Turkey began to expand its military position in Iraq’s Kurddestan.

The Turkish government did not respond to the BBC’s request for interviews, but insisted that the military base was needed to withdraw the PKK designated as a terrorist organization and the United Kingdom.

Kani Masi’s sub -district capital, which is only 4km (2.5 miles) from the Iraqi border, can see the future of Sergele.

If you become famous for its production of Apple, few residents are now here.

Salam Saed, a farmer in the shadow of a large Turkish base, has not been able to cultivate vineyards for the past three years.

“The moment you arrive here, you will have a drone hover,” BBC says.

“If you stay, they will shoot you.”

The Turkish army was first established in the 1990s and has been integrated since then.

The main military base, characterized by the space where the concrete explosion walls, clocks and communication towers and armored employees can move inside, are much more advanced than the small outposts around the Sergele.

Salam, like other locals, thinks Turkey ultimately wants to claim the territory in itself.

“What they want is to leave this area,” he added.

Near the Kani Masi, the BBC directly saw how the Turkish army, which was responsible for protecting the international boundaries of Iraq, effectively pushed the Iraqi border guard.

In various regions, the border guards sent a manning position inside Iraq, opposite the Turkish army, and could not go up to the border and could not cause potentially conflict.

“The post you see is Türkiye’s status,” said General Farhad Mahmood.

“We can’t reach the border to know the number of posts,” he added.

As Turkey’s military expansion in Iraq’s Kurddestan increases to drone power and defense budget, it is considered part of a wide range of foreign policy transitions to larger interventionism in the region.

Like the operation of Iraq, Turkey also tried to establish a buffer zone to include Syrian armed groups allied with PKK along Syria and borders.

Publicly, the Iraqi government condemned Türkiye’s military position. But behind the closed door, some of the demands of Ankara were accepted.

In 2024, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to fight with PKK.

But this document gained by the BBC has not been limited to Iraq’s Turkish army.

While Iraq relays on Turkey, trade, investment and water resources, fractured internal politics further corrupt the ability to take the government’s strong position.

The Iraqi government did not respond to the BBC request.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Kurds’ anti -autonomous rulers have been closely related to Ankara based on mutual interests and neglected the civilian solutions due to Türkiye’s military action.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) of PKK was officially responsible for ruling the Kurdish regional government (KRG) and after the Iraqi Constitution has given anti -autonomous status to this region since 2005.

KDP’s close ties with Turkey contributed to the economic success of the region, strengthening the position of local political rivals and Baghdad’s Iraqi government, and thus worked for greater autonomy.

HOSHYAR ZEBARI, a senior member of KDP’s Politburo, tried to blame PKK for Türkiye’s existence in Kurdish Stan, Iraq.

“them [the Turkish military] “We are not harming our people.”

“They do not detain them. They do not interfere with their business. Their focus, their only goal, is PKK.”

Although PKK’s long -standing leader Abdulla Ocalan requested the fighter to dismiss the fighter in February, the dispute did not show signs of the ending.

Turkey continued to peel the goals throughout Iraq’s Kurddestan, and PKK claimed to break down Turkish drones last month.

According to the NGO Crisis Group, Turkey’s violence has decreased since 2016, but Iraq’s people in the border have a growing risk of death and migration.

One of the dead was Alan ismail at the age of 24. In August 2023, he traveled to the mountain with his cousin, Hashem Shaker, a four -stage cancer patient.

The Turkish army refused to strike that day, but the BBC’s police report thought the case was a property of Turkish drones.

Hashem rejected him and his family for eight months on charges of supporting PKK when he complained about the attacks detained by the Kurdish security army in the district court.

Alan’s father, Ismail Chichu, said, “We have destroyed us, which is like killing the whole family.

“them [the Turks] There is no right to kill people in your own country in your own country. “

The Turkish Department of Defense did not respond to the BBC’s request. Previously, the media told the media that the Turkish army followed international law and paid attention only to terrorists, paying attention to preventing civilians from harming civilians in operational plans and executions.

The BBC read a document that the Kurdish authorities might have acted to help Turkey avoided responsibility for civilian casualties.

The BBC’s confidential paper said that the Kurdish court ended the investigation of Alan’s murder and said the perpetrator was unknown.

And his death certificate, published by the Kurdish authorities and his death certificate, said he died of “explosive debris.”

If the victims do not mention them when they die as a result of violence, not an accident, it is difficult for the family to seek qualified definitions and compensation according to both Iraq and Kurdish laws.

Kamaran Othman of the Community Peacemaker team said, “In most death certificates, we only wrote ‘Infija’, which means explosion.

“It can explode anything.

“The Kurdish government doesn’t want to be responsible for what Turkey is doing here.”

KRG acknowledged the tragic loss of civilians due to military confrontation between the PKK and the Turkish army in the region.

It added that “many casualties” were recorded as “private martyrs.”

Almost two years after Alan’s murder, his family is still waiting to be rewarded. At least we are waiting for KRG recognition.

Ismail said, “At least you can send mourning. We do not need rewards.

“If something disappears, it disappears forever.”