An Iraqi army tank in Kirkuk's Newroz neighborhood on January 3, 2024. Photo: Rudaw/screengrab
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Forces of the Iraqi army have been stationed in a Kirkuk neighborhood since Tuesday, telling the residents to evacuate their homes, despite efforts from Kurdish lawmakers in Baghdad to halt the process.
The army began knocking on the doors of Kirkuk city’s Newroz neighborhood in the early hours of Tuesday, informing the families residing there that they needed to evacuate their homes on the grounds that the neighborhood is property of the defense ministry.
Shakhawan Abdullah, the Iraqi parliament’s second deputy speaker, on Wednesday said that Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani directed the defense ministry to withdraw from the neighborhood and cease the operation.
“The force has not withdrawn and all of these houses have been seized. Humvees keep roaming around the neighborhood as if it were a military zone,” Fakhraddin Ali, who has been residing in Newroz for the past 20 years, told Rudaw’s Hiwa Hussamadin on Wednesday.
A total of 172 families, mostly Kurds, reside in the neighborhood’s 122 houses. They told Rudaw that they fear they might be forced out of their homes as the Iraqi army plans to turn the neighborhood into a military base.
“This is not the first time this happens since October 16. They have made multiple attempts using legal methods but they have not been able to achieve anything, because their actions have no legal backbone. This time they are trying to do it with force and push people, but they can be assured that the people will not leave this neighborhood and abandon it,” said Ahmad Star, another resident.
Rawand Mala Star, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) local official in Kirkuk, said that the party is in constant contact with the federal government in Baghdad to halt the operation.
The houses in the Newroz neighborhood were previously inhabited by members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath party. After the fall of the regime, Kurdish families from Kirkuk who were displaced to other parts of the country, returned to the neighborhood and began residing in those houses.
Paul Bremer, the administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority which oversaw Iraq after 2003, issued a decree to register these houses as properties of the finance ministry.
A decree issued by the former Kirkuk provincial council granted the families the right to remain in the houses until the federal government provided them with compensation.
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