Kurdish farmers fear land takeover in Kirkuk province

KIRKUK — Farmers in Kirkuk province fear Arabs resettled under the Baath regime are planning to take over their land and seize crops. 

Video footage circulating on social media over the weekend showed Arabs on Kurdish farmland in Saragaran, removing crops and threatening to confiscate the land.

"The [resettled Arabs] now live in Dibis. They are waiting for something to happen so they can return to this area. They are around 300 to 400 families. They have been eyeing our lands," landowner Arshad Salih told Rudaw.

Kirkuk province constitutes part of the territories disputed between Erbil and Baghdad. Many Arabs from southern Iraq were resettled in the area during Saddam Hussein's rule. 

"He [a resettled Arab] sent me a message saying I have to abandon my house and the farmland to him. He was saying that the [Iraqi] government had given the land to him. I do not know which court granted him ownership of my land," Salih added.

Kurdish farmers have previously accused Arabs of setting fire to their crops. 

Farmers in the area are also threatened by Islamic State (ISIS) militants, who have taken to burning farmland across the disputed territories. 

To prevent Iraqi armed forces from interfering in land disputes, Kurdish MPs and members of the Iraqi Parliament's security and defense committee have received guarantee from the  Iraqi Joint Operations Command that local armed forces in Kirkuk, Diyala and Saladin provinces will not interfere in administrative affairs in their respective regions.

There are 38 villages in Sargaran town. 12 of these villages are subject to land disputes, according to Sargaran local council.

 Reporting by Hardi Mohammed