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IRAQ: The Kurds struggle, inside a tent city

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She was singing in a low voice while sewing a frock for her little girl, Tavga Ahmed, who stood quietly at her side. Home for the girl and her mother, Owaz Jamal, is a tent, one of about 200 erected in a remote mountainous area of Iraq near the Iranian border.

This tent city was hastily established after the latest round of air strikes from Turkish forces sent residents of Rezga, about 35 miles away, fleeing for safety. Most left everything behind — their livestock, their clothes, sometimes even their money. It is a life many have become accustomed to as the tensions between Kurdish separatists operating from bases in the mountains lead to clashes with Turkish troops.

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In Rezga, people say they also are bombarded by Iranian munitions. Both Iran and Turkey are fighting Kurdish rebels who want a separate autonomous state.

The latest fighting erupted Thursday and Friday, and Turkey’s military claimed Saturday that it had killed 150 rebels. The rebels scoff at that. Civilians don’t know how many people have died on either side. They just know that they are caught in the middle of this war, which has been going on since 1984.

‘We have many livestock that we need to tend. We can’t take them to the mountains,’ said Muhammad Khorsheed. ‘We can’t even work our farms, and we don’t know who to complain to.’ He sees no end to the conflict.

Tensions began rising last fall after Kurdish strikes on Turkish troops over the border. Turkey responded by massing troops along the frontier and staging ocassional air strikes. Then, it staged a surprise ground invasion in February.

The United States considers the main Kurdish rebel group a terrorist organization and says Turkey has the right to defend itself, but it also doesn’t want to see northern Iraq — the calmest part of the country — destabilized.

For civilians living in this region, it’s too late for that. Saman Haidar returns to his village daily from the tent camp to tend to his livestock. On his last visit a couple of days ago, he described ‘horrifying air strikes.’

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‘We entered a small shelter which we had built awhile ago. We turned off all our lights,’ Haidar said. The experience scared him so much that he has given up returning again. When he came to the camp, he brought his livestock with him, in hopes they’d be safe there until the problem was solved.

—Asso Ahmed in Kurdistan

Photos by Asso Ahmed. From top: Owaz Jamal, with daughter Tavga Ahmed, sews inside the family’s tent; Tavga Ahmed washes dishes; about 200 families live in this tent camp; a woman who gave her name as Nashmel scours a pot.

P.S. The Los Angeles Times issues a free daily newsletter with the latest headlines from the Middle East, the war in Iraq and the frictions between the West and Islam. You can subscribe by registering at the website here, logging in here and clicking on the World: Mideast newsletter box here.

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