Governor calls for people of Kirkuk to return ahead of census

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Kirkuk Governor Rebwar Taha on Saturday urged people originally from the disputed province to return to their Kirkuk homes for the national census later this week.

“I call on the people, the families, who are not in Kirkuk, to start returning to their own city, be among your household, be among your relatives. This is for you, for your future, in order to not be stripped of your rights and entitlements and be included in the 2024 census,” Taha said during a press conference in Kirkuk.

“This process is for all the residents of Kirkuk and for Iraqi people in general, and there will not be any other reasons behind it,” Taha said.

Iraq will conduct a population census on November 20 and 21 for the first time in decades. The process has raised concerns among some Kurdish officials about how suspected demographic shifts in disputed areas will be reflected in the count.

A census could contribute to the resolution of many problems like Baathist-era Arabization, the status of the disputed Kirkuk province, and the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) share of the federal budget.

In a bid to address the Kurdish concerns, earlier this month the Iraqi government approved a KRG request to conduct the census based on residents’ place of origin rather than their current place of residence, using information from the Iraqi migration ministry and the 1957 census for reference in the disputed areas.

The census will also not gather information on ethnicity.

“Regarding the general population census, it’s a general development census. The form presented to the family via the tablet device will be devoid of ethnicity, devoid of sectarianism, devoid of anything that shows an ethnic property,” Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim, director general of the administrative and financial department of the Iraqi planning ministry, said during the press conference.

Despite the emphasis on development and not ethnicity, calls for people to return to their places of origin have crescendoed, especially from parties representing minority groups.

In a Saturday post on X, the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa), called on Assyrians and Chaldeans to return to “actively contribute” in the census and help “to draw a better future for Iraq.”

“We also call on our people, the residents of Nineveh and the Nineveh Plains, that are in other Iraqi provinces, to be present at their places of origin on the census days and register from there, for it has great national importance,” read the statement.

Preliminary results of the count are expected to be announced within 24 hours, Abdulzahra al-Hindawi, spokesperson for the Iraqi planning ministry, told Rudaw on Saturday.

"The preliminary results will include the population counts at the national and provincial levels, as well as the number of males and females, along with some other details,” he said, adding that they will need more than two months to release the final results.

The Iraqi government has announced a two-day nation-wide curfew on the days of the census. Airports and border crossings will remain open for tourists and commercial movement, according to Mahmoud Osman, executive director of the population census in the Kurdistan Region.

Iraq last conducted a census in 1997, excluding the provinces of the Kurdistan Region. The last census involving the Kurdistan Region was in 1987.

Estimates put Iraq’s population at around 50 million. A census planned for 2020 was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.

 

Abdullah Salam contributed to this article.