Khrystalpol Incident
| This page (or section) is a work in progress by its author(s) and should not be considered final. |
| Khrystalpol Incident | |
|---|---|
| Part of Vakari Reintegration Tensions | |
| Location | Khrystalpol, Northwest Irnac, Durakia |
| Date | November 16-19, 2021 |
| Deaths | 16 "raiders", 3 security officers |
| Injured | 50–150 |
| Assailants |
|
The Khrystalpol Incident, also referred to as the K-17 Raid or the K-17 Massacre occurred around the restricted area around the K-17 Air Force facility, near the town of Khrystalpol, in which a group of Armed Security acted against orders and fired upon a crowd of self-purported "raiders" in retaliation for the assault of Security Officer Leon Kaliev.
Background
Irnac War
The raid took place in the town of Khrystalpol, a mining town formerly part of the People's Martovist Republic of Vakaria, Vakarastan, south of Nov Martovgrad that later hosted a sizable Vakari airbase. This military presence made the town an important target during the conflict. Khrystalpol Airbase was bombed repeatedly in the early stages of the war, and on one occasion an errant missile strike landed in the town centre, destroying a civic centre-turned refugee shelter and killing 73 civilians in what became known as the "Green Fury", due to accusations from the town that the missile was an intentional strike by Tretrid.
During the Nov Martovgrad Offensive, Khrystalpol was occupied after heavy fighting, with civilian militia defending the town until being forced to surrender on the 3rd of August. Along with the rest of Vakaristan, the town was eventually annexed into Durakia as a part of the Northwestern Irnac subdivision. Though the town was rebuilt under the Vakari Reconstruction Program, it remained a centre for unrest and Martovist sentiment after the occupation due to the death toll suffered during the conflict.
The Khrystalpol Sleeping Sickness
Beginning in January 2021, instances of a phenomenon known as "Khrystalpol Sleeping Sickness" began to occur in the town. Victims reported suffering from severe hallucinations and nausea before falling asleep for days at a time. Some individuals claimed to have been impacted on multiple occasions. Animals were similarly affected, and also sometimes showed signs of unusual aggression.
Reports by the Vakaria government uncovered in 2022 suggested that cases of "Sleeping Sickness" had been reported as early as 2013, but had been effectively silenced or misattributed by the Department of Truth (DoT). However, the relative openness of Durakan society along with a noted increase in cases initially created the impression in both local and global media that the phenomenon was both entirely new and rapidly expanding, with over a hundred residents falling ill over the course of 2021.
Researchers from the Health Department of Durakia issued a report in December 2021 indicating that the sickness could be attributed to gas leaks from the old and unmaintained Vakari mines, which had been previously overlooked by occupying authorities, a sentiment echoed by independent sources in the Durakan medical community. In the months leading up to the Incident however, a widely popular theory began to circulate among the local population which suggested that the sickness was the result of a secret Durakan weapons project that was supposedly under development at Khrystalpol Airbase, now renamed K-17 by the Air Force of Durakia - the Miner's Revolutionary Air Corps - and used to test experimental communications gear in cooperation with Rekelta as part of the newly established Kretsburg Airbase Reassignment Program which had created the K- classification of former Vakari airbases.
Though largely unsubstantiated, this theory quickly garnered support due to lingering resentment towards the Durakan authorities and the belief that the government was deliberately sacrificing the health of former Vakari, in what some conspiracy theorists called a "genocide from expedience". The K-17 Conspiracy was further aided by the town having recently gained internet access earlier that year. Durakan authorities reported sights of Khrystalpol residents crowding around the publicly available computers at the local library to discuss and research the crisis. The primary discussion site was in fact an Internet Relay Chat channel called #MartovLives, which was purportedly run by and for former Vakari nationals learning to navigate the world wide web. #MartovLives apparently became a hub for the K-17 Conspiracy Theory, and also the centre point of a movement urging residents to "Storm K-17" in order to find and shut down the source of the illness themselves.
Later investigations of #MartovLives failed to determine the real life identities of any of its moderators, and reviews of chat logs suggested that the personal information they had provided to users consisted of false and non-existent identities. Durakan security services would ultimately conclude that the moderators were likely not ordinary Vakari citizens both due to this duplicity and the fact that their apparent proficiency in hiding their trail was inconsistent with the wider Vakari population's inexperience with online technology. It was also notable that no link or correspondence between #MartovLives and the Vakari Exile Government in Ansdorf could be found, despite the suspicions of Durakan authorities.
Incident
Throughout October and early November, occupying authorities in Khrystalpol reported an increasingly agitated state of affairs in the town, as answers surrounding the Sleeping Sickness remained unavailable and conspiracy theories took root. Discussion on #MartovLives was also observed to take an increasingly aggressive tone during this period. Local community leaders announced that they would hold rallies outside K-17 starting on the 16th of November. Though initially wary, Durakan authorities elected to allow the demonstrations to go forward so long as they remained peaceful. Subsequent hearings confirmed that both civilian and military authorities had operated under the belief that disrupting the rallies would trigger further unrest in both Khrystalpol and other occupied Vakari territories.
(WIP)