ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Farmers and villagers who own land in the vicinity of Erbil province’s Harir airbase told Rudaw on Sunday that they have not been compensated for their thousands of dunams of land that were used in the airbase’s latest expansion. For the third time in nearly half a century, the Harir Airbase has been expanded. The base currently covers 5,700 dunams of land. The base has been a major airfield for coalition forces since the 2003 invasion of Iraq and there are reports of further expansions in recent years. The new expansion that covers 1,200 dunams is owned by local farmers from seven villages around the airbase who ask for compensation from the relevant Iraqi and Kurdish authorities, a call that they say has gone unanswered so far. Some of the affected locals who spoke to Rudaw said that despite asking for their rights, authorities have warned them to stay away from plowing their lands. "Nobody has received even a single 250 dinars in compensation... Even though our names have already been registered with them [the authorities], nobody has yet received anything in compensation," Majid Rasul, a farmer, told Rudaw's Bakhtiyar Qadir on Sunday. In 1979, the Harir airfield was mainly an airbase for agricultural purposes and the area covered just 3,000 cubic meters. During the Iran–Iraq War in 1983, it was turned into a military airbase, expanding the premise by 25 dunams. The affected farmers say they have on several occasions visited those in charge of the base for material compensation, but they were told that such a decision is vested in the hands of Erbil and Baghdad authorities. The government has allegedly planned to pay $7,000 per dunam in compensation, the mayor of Shaqlawa said. "Those people whose lands have been taken away from them as part of the airfield expansion will be compensated. We will also take into account efforts that some people have made in the course of the past years making a living out of working in these lands," Karwan Karimkhan said. The area of the Harir plains is 100,376 dunams, and more than 5,000 families in the area make a living out of agriculture, according to the statistics of the agricultural directorate of the area. Around 2,000 farmers have lost their jobs due to the gradual expansions of the airbase.
