Life within the forbidden area in Iraq

It is located in the Iraqi Kurdistan Mountains in the picturesque village of Sergilli.

For generations, villagers have achieved their lives pomegranate, almonds, peaches and fodder in the forests surrounding fruits and wild spices.

But Sergilli, which is 16 km (10 miles) from the border with Türkiye, is increasingly surrounded by Turkish military bases, scattered through the slopes.

The first, which floats in the middle of the road at the western edge, waves on the horizon over the village, while it is another in the east under construction.

At least seven were built here over the past two years, including a small dam that regulates the water supply in Sergilli, making it outside the border to the villagers.

“This is 100 % of the forms of the occupation of Kurdish lands (Iraqi Kurdistan),” says farmer Sherwan Sherwan Sergili, 50, who has lost access to some of his lands.

“The Turks destroyed it.”

Sergilli is now at the risk of clouds to what is known locally as the “forbidden zone” – a large strip of land in northern Iraq affected by the Turkey war with the Kurdish militant group The PKK, which launched a rebellion in southern Turkey in 1984.

The prohibited region extends almost the length of the Iraqi border with Türkiye and reaches 40 km (25 miles) in places.

Community peacemaker teams, a group of human rights in Iraqi Kurdistan, say that hundreds of civilians have been killed by air strikes and aircraft in the forbidden area and around them. According to a parliamentary report for the year 2020, thousands were forced on their lands and the entire villages were emptied due to the conflict.

Sergele is now actually on the front line of Türkiye’s war with the PKK.

When the BBC World Service Eye investigative team visited the area, Turkish aircraft around the village hit the PKK fighters, who have long worked on caves and tunnels in northern Iraq.

Many surrounding Sergilli lands were burned by bombing.

Sherwan says: “The more the number of rules they set, the more it is for us,” Sherwan says.

Türkiye has been growing quickly in its military presence in the forbidden area in recent years, but so far the size of this expansion has not been known to the public.

Using the satellite images that were evaluated by experts and supported with content on the ground and open source content, the BBC found that as of December 2024, the Turkish army built at least 136 fixed military facilities in northern Iraq.

Through its wide network of military bases, Türkiye now controls the inaccurate control over more than 2000 square kilometers (772 square miles) of Iraqi territory.

Satellite images also reveal that the Turkish army has built at least 660 km (410 miles) of the ways that link its facilities. These supply routes resulted in the removal of the forests and left a permanent imprint on the mountains of the region.

While a few bases date back to the nineties, 89 % have been built since 2018, after which Türkiye began to expand its military existence significantly in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Turkish government did not respond to the BBC requests for interviews, but confirmed that its military bases are necessary for the retreat of the PKK, which was appointed a terrorist organization by Ankara and a number of Western countries, including the United Kingdom.

The sub -capital of Kani Masi, which is located only 4 km (2.5 miles) from the Iraqi border and its parts within the forbidden region, may offer a glimpse of the future of Sergilli.

Once it is famous for the production of apples, a few population remains here now.

The farmer Salam Saeed, whose land is under a large Turkish base, has not been able to grow his generosity over the past three years.

“The moment you arrive here, you will have a drone hovering over you,” he says to BBC.

“They will shoot you if you stay.”

The Turkish army was established for the first time here in the 1990s and has been working to unify its existence since then.

Its main military base, which includes concrete explosion walls, watches and communications towers, and an area of ​​armored staff to move inward, are more advanced than smaller outposts around Sergilli.

Salam, like some other local population, believes that Türkiye eventually wants to demand the region as its property.

“All they want is to leave these areas.”

Near Kani Masi, the BBC saw how Turkish forces actually pushed the Iraqi border guard, who is responsible for protecting the international borders of Iraq.

In many sites, border guards were running positions inside Iraqi territory, directly opposite the Turkish forces, unable to go to the border and may risk by chance.

“The posts that you see are Turkish jobs,” says General Ferra Mahmoud, referring to a series of hills across Wadi, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) inside the Iraqi region.

“We cannot reach the limits to know the number of posts,” he adds.

The military expansion in Türkiye in Iraqi Kurdistan – which is fueled by its height as a drone force and an increasing defense budget – is seen as part of a broader shift in foreign policy towards greater intervention in the region.

Similar to its operations in Iraq, Türkiye also sought to create a buffer zone along its borders with Syria to contain the Syrian armed groups allied with the PKK.

In public places, the Iraqi government condemned the military presence of Turkey in the country. But behind the closed doors, I absorbed some of the demands of Ankara.

In 2024, the two sides signed a memorandum of understanding to join the Kurdistan Workers Party.

But the document, which BBC obtained, did not put any restrictions on the Turkish forces in Iraq.

Iraq relies on Turkey for trade, investment and water security, while its broken internal policy has undermined the government’s ability to take a strong position.

The national government in Iraq did not want the BBC requests to comment.

Meanwhile, the rulers of the semi -weeping region in Iraqi Kurdistan have a close relationship with Ankara based on mutual interests and often reduced civil harm due to the military action of Turkey.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), an arc enemy of the Kurdistan Workers Party, dominates the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), and has been officially official since 2005, when the Iraq constitution granted the region its semi -self -status.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party’s close relations with Turkey contributed to the region’s economic success and strengthened its position both against its regional political competitors and the Iraqi government in Baghdad, which gives up more self -independence.

Hoshiar Zebari, a senior member of the Politech of Code B in the Democratic Democratic Party, sought to blame the Kurdistan Workers Party for the presence of Türkiye in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“They (the Turkish army) do not harm our people,” he told the BBC.

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

The conflict does not show any signs of completion, although the leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party, which is long awaited by Abdullah Uklan, calls in February to his fighters to put weapons and resolving weapons.

Türkiye continued its targets throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, while the PKK claimed responsibility for shooting down a Turkish drone last month.

While violent incidents have decreased in Türkiye since 2016, according to the group of non -governmental organizations crisis, those in Iraq have risen, as civilians in the border area live the increasing risks of death and displacement.

One of these was the 24 -year -old Alan Ismail, a cancer patient at the stage, which was hit by an air strike in August 2023 while on a trip to the mountains with his cousin, Hashem Shaker.

The Turkish army denied a blow that day, but the BBC police report attributes the incident to the Turkish drone.

When Hashem filed a complaint with a local court about the attack he had detained by the Kurdish security forces and detained it for eight months on suspicion of supporting her to the PKK – an accusation he and his family denounced.

“We have been destroyed. It is like killing the entire family.”

“They (the Turks) have no rights to kill people in their country on their soil.”

The Ministry of Defense in Türkiye did not respond to requests to comment on the British Broadcasting Commission. He previously told the media that the Turkish armed forces are following international law, and that in planning and carrying out their operations only target terrorists, while taking care to prevent harm to civilians.

BBC has witnessed documents indicating that the Kurdish authorities may have acted to help Türkiye evade accountability for civil losses.

The BBC’s secret papers showed that the Kurdish court closed the investigation of Alan’s killing, saying that the perpetrator was not known.

And the certificate of his death – issued by the Kurdish authorities and the British Broadcasting Corporation – says he died because of “explosive fragments.”

The failure to mention when the victims of air strikes died as a result of violence, rather than an accident, makes it difficult for families to seek justice and compensation, which are legally entitled under Iraqi and Kurdish law.

“In most death certificates, they only wrote” Infijar “, which means the explosion.”

“Anything can be exploded.

“I think the Kurdish regional government does not want to make Türkiye responsible for what they are doing here.”

KRG said it had confessed to “the tragic loss of civilians resulting from the military confrontation between the PKK and the Turkish army in the region.”

He added that a “number of victims” was documented as “civil martyrs”, which means that they were unfairly killed and followed them for compensation.

Nearly two years after Alan’s death, his family is still waiting, if not compensation, at least due to the recognition of KRG.

“They can at least send their condolences – we do not need to compensate them,” Ismail says.

“When something went, he went forever.”