Residents of the Iraqi Kurdish village of Mahmur, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of this Kurdish regional capital, fled their homes following an explosion of a stock of sulphur attributed to sabotage. “Gas clouds hanging over Mahmur have prompted around 4,000 residents to flee the village to Arbil since Thursday,” Ghafur Mahmuri, a Kurdish official from Mahmur, told AFP. The gas polluting the village came from “a large quantity of sulphur on fire in nearby Hammam al-Alil,” located some 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the main northern Iraqi city of Mosul, Mahmuri said. “It was an act of sabotage. Unknown elements on Wednesday fired rocket-propelled grenades at a stock of sulphur that had been unguarded” since the US-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein in April, setting it on fire, he said. A cab driver who came to Arbil said the village was “very polluted” and he had suffered respiratory problems there. Full Story
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