A group of 40 Kurdish villagers were moving on the night of December 28, 2011, from Iraqi territory towards the Turkish border. They were mostly teenagers, mostly of Turkish nationality, from Ortasu (in Kurdish: Roboskî) and Gülyazı villages in Uludere district of Şırnak Province, Turkey. They were smuggling cigarettes, diesel oil and other goods into Turkey, packed on mules.[8][9][10]