Local authorities and news outlets in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region have said that several people were killed in a Turkish drone strike on Friday, including two journalists.
In an initial statement on Friday, the regional authorities said that a car belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was struck near the city of Sulaymaniyah, killing a senior PKK official, his guard and his driver.
However, a later statement by the Kurdistan regional government’s Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said that the attack targeted a group of journalists, two of whom were killed.
“They were two women journalists, not members of an armed force to be a threat to the security and stability of any country or region,” Talabani said in a statement.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a press advocacy organisation, also released a statement denouncing the deaths of the two journalists, identified as 27-year-old Hero Baha’uddin and 40-year-old Golestan Tara from Sterk TV.
It also mentioned a third journalist from the same outlet, Rebin Baker, was injured as they travelled together. Jonathan Dagher, the head of RSF’s Middle East bureau, noted that Friday’s attack followed another drone strike on July 8 that killed one journalist and hurt another.
“With three media professionals killed in just two months, the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming one of the most dangerous zones in the world for journalists,” he said in a statement.
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