To better protect their borders, authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan are digging a large trench in the area bordering Syria. Locals are protesting about it, saying that links with family and friends in neighbouring towns will be severed and economic opportunities lost; some are already describing it as a Kurdish Berlin Wall. It is not just the villagers who are upset about the trench. Dozens of Syrian activists who have found refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan staged a sit-in in front of local government buildings in the region’s capital, Erbil. They demanded that the digging of the trench be halted and chanted slogans like, “western Kurdistan needs help, not trenches”. Western Kurdistan refers to the fact that if the Kurdish people had their own country in areas where they are most populous, the Syrian Kurdish areas would make up the west of a Kurdish nation. niqash.org/articles/?id=3424
Posted on: Sun, 20 Apr 2014 00:39:52 +0000