Eight killed, 23 injured in Turkish attack on resort in Iraq's Dohuk province

SULAIMANIYA (IRAQ): Eight tourists, including a one-year-old, died and another 23 people were injured in a Turkish attack on a mountain resort in Iraq's northern province of Dohuk, Iraq state media said on Wednesday.

The "fierce artillery bombing" hit a resort in Zakho, a city on the border between Iraq's Kurdistan region and Turkey, state TV said.

Children were amongst the victims, the Kurdish health minister said in a statement, adding that all the victims died before reaching a hospital.

"We go towards the mountainside, there are strikes. We go towards the waterfall, there are strikes. We go towards this side, there are strikes," said Mustafa Aala, 24, who was at the resort with a friend when the attack occurred.

"We pulled up the fence that was around the waterfall. We looked from inside, I saw children lying on the ground....It's a scene that I've never seen in my life," Aala added.

The Turkish defence ministry said in a statement that two PKK militants had surrendered to a Turkish security point at the Habur border crossing with Iraq, which is about 10 km from Zakho, but made no mention of the attack. The ministry was not immediately available for comment.

Turkey regularly carries out air strikes in northern Iraq and has sent commandos to support its offensives as part of a long-running campaign in Iraq and Syria against militants of the Kurdish PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Ankara regards both as terrorist groups.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which in the past was mainly focused in southeast Turkey where the PKK sought to create an ethnic homeland.

The top United Nations envoy to Iraq condemned Wednesday's attack in a statement published on Twitter and called for an investigation.