KIRKUK, Kurdistan Region — Kurdish farmers from five villages are protesting an Iraqi Army directive that bars them from harvesting winter crops and wheat.
They fear this threatens their livelihoods and ancestral lands, suspecting political motives behind the directive.
The farmers claim that Arab people want to take over their lands with the support of the Iraqi forces.
“We’ve been dealing with this issue for the past 7 years and we don’t know what to do. We’ll never leave here, even until death. Even if it means sacrificing our infants in their cradles for this cause, we will not vacate this land,” said a Kurdish farmer speaking to Zoom News.
With the harvesting season imminent, the farmers remain determined to harvest their crops, seeking legal and administrative resolution to the dispute.
The area, encompassing 180,000 dunams of agricultural land, is part of the 1,500,000 dunams subject to dispute in the region, underscoring the complexity of the situation and the longstanding grievances of the Kurdish farming community.
#Kurdish farmers in #Kirkuk's Sargaran area claim they are hindered from harvesting their crops by the #Iraqi Army, escalating tensions and threatening their livelihoods. pic.twitter.com/CkVNXiB3PE
— Zoom News (@zoomnewskrd) April 30, 2024
