NOTES FROM KIRKUK, by Bilgay Dunman, ORSAM Researcher

Notes from Kirkuk


Bilgay Duman, ORSAM Researcher




ISIS threat affects daily life in Kirkuk. Due to the threat, costs of many products raised in the city. For instance, cost of a can of vegetable oil went up to 32-33 thousand Dinars from 21-22 thousand Dinars. Also in towns under ISIS threat people are unable to go to work and many people do not have an income for the last couple of months. Thus, trade also stopped as a consequence. ISIS’s most significant impact is on education since Iraq’s new educational season has not begun yet. Refugees are dwelling in Kirkuk’s many schools.



A bulk these refugees are Turkmans. The Turkmans who left Telafer, Mosul, Basher, Yengije, Bayat, Karatepe, Jalewle, and Hanekin are placed in schools and mosques in Kirkuk. Their situation is really bad. Charities and foundations especially founded by the Turkmans are trying help with their campaigns. Though they are not enough and a working mechanism has been formed yet.


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Selective treatment for IDPs in Kurdistan

Photo: Ahmed Ali/IRIN

Khazair camp is home to thousands of displaced Iraqis

ERBIL, 16 July 2014 (IRIN) - Concern is growing over how the semi-autonomous government of Iraqi Kurdistan is managing its borders amid reports that vulnerable families seeking refuge are being refused entry or forced into transit camps along ethnic lines.

In the days after militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), seized control of Iraq’s second city Mosul in early June, some 500,000 Iraqis of varying ethnicities streamed into the northern Kurdistan region seeking shelter in a mix of hotels, mosques, schools and parks.

However, in recent weeks, aid workers say that access has been tightened and fewer displaced people are being allowed in.

According to NGO staff working at the border, checkpoints are regularly closed and thousands of people are kept waiting for long periods - in some instances up to five days - without information and with limited access to shelter, food and water.

There is also, rights groups say, a trend of different access rules being applied based on people’s ethnicity and religion: Kurds and Christians, or those who have sponsors inside Kurdistan, are able to pass relatively easily, but generally Sunni and Shia Arabs and Turkomen are being stopped or sent to temporary holding sites.

A senior aid worker from an international NGO, who declined to be named due to the “extreme sensitivities” of the issue, said: “The blocking of entry to people along ethnic lines is an issue and it needs to be looked at.”