Angry Iraq mourns dead from shelling blamed on Turkey

By AFP 21 July 2022, 2:27 pm

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Pallbearers carry the casket of one of the victims killed a day earlier in a Kurdish hill village in an attack blamed on Turkey, before being flown to their cities from the airport in Arbil, the capital of Iraq's northern Kurdish autonomous region, on July 21, 2022 (SAFIN HAMED / AFP)

Iraq holds a day of national mourning for nine holidaymakers killed in the bombardment of a Kurdish hill village that the government has blamed on neighboring Turkey.

Turkey denied its troops were responsible, instead blaming rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), prompting Germany to call for an urgent investigation.

The coffins of the nine dead, draped in Iraqi national flags and festooned with flowers, were put on board a flight to Baghdad from Kurdish regional capital Arbil by an honor guard led by top officials.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein and Kurdish regional president Nechirvan Barzani led the pallbearers carrying the smallest of the coffins, a child’s, onto the military plane, an AFP correspondent reports.

In Baghdad, the bodies are to be handed over to their families for burial.