Clashes take place between resettled Arabs, Kurdish villagers in Kirkuk

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Resettled Arabs on Friday afternoon attacked the Kurdish residents of a disputed Kirkuk village, resulting in causalities, Kurdistan 24 has learned from a villager.

The fight comes as the Sunni Muslims in the Iraq and Kurdistan Region celebrate the first day of Eid al-Fitr on Friday, following the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Nearly 400 resettled Arabs “attacked” the Kurdish villagers in Palkana, west of Kirkuk, Ismael Mohammad, a resident of the village, told Kurdistan 24, describing the situation as “very disturbing”.

Nearly 10 Kurdish villagers were wounded as a result of the fight.

The attackers and villagers fought each other with wooden sticks and rocks, the villager said, asking the Kurdish lawmakers from the province to address the issue before the situation “gets out of hand”.

“They want to harass and force us out the area,” Mohammad said, accusing the interim governor and the province’s administration of “sparking a strife”.

Trying to “calm the situation”, the Iraqi soldiers from the 8th Infantry Division shot into the air, Kurdistan 24 has learned. It did not result in any casualities. 

As part of the former Ba’athist regime’s Arabization program, Arabs from different parts of the country were resettled in the Kurdish-majority Kirkuk province and other territories, evicting their Kurdish denizens and confiscating tens of thousands of hectares in a bid to change its demography.

Following the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, those resettled population, who were farming on Kurdish agricultural lands, were awarded compensation in order to return to their places of origin.

After the withdrawal of Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the areas in 2017, resettled Arabs began to claim those lands whose Kurdish ownership had been documented by the Ottoman Empire authorities, according to the Kurdish farmers.

Article 140 was introduced into the Iraqi constitution to allow its 2005 ratification by kicking controversial decisions on the disputed territories down the road, but over a decade has passed since the 2007 deadline for the article's implementation.

Additional reporting by Kurdistan 24 Kirkuk correspondent Hemin Dalo