[Rudaw] After several years of drought, farmers in Syria and Iraq were looking forward to the bountiful harvests that this season’s ample rainfall made possible. Across northern Iraq and Syria, however, seemingly endless fires decimate their wheat fields just before the harvest. In Shingal, the field fires threaten already battered Yezidi communities and raged across suspected mass graves.
In disputed territories, around places like Kirkuk,
... a thick stew of Arabs, Turkmen, Kurds, and probably Antarcticans, all of them mutually hostile most of the time...
suspicions regarding the arsonists responsible for setting crops ablaze exacerbate already tense inter-ethnic relations. In Syria, communities around Raqqa and other recently liberated areas must now deal with more suffering as their fields burn. |