One year and eight months has passed, yet the returning refugees of Kirkuk are complaining that Kirkuk officials have neglected them by not providing them with the lands which were promised to them as compensation.
Burhan Failaq, one of the returning refugees said, “I’m trespassing by building a house on illegal land and I would not let anyone destroy it. Because they haven’t given me residential lands.” For the past two years, Kirkuk returning refugees have been waiting to the promised land distribution to them. The High Committee of Article 140 Implementation members blame the municipality system, as well as not having enough lands. But trespassing by the refugees has been increasing recently.
The High Committee of Article 140 Implementation urged the Councils’ Minister to provide the refugees with lands in the document numbered 125, with the signature of Ra’d Fahmi, former chief of the committee. Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Maliki confirmed their decision to provide the returning refugees with lands in the context of the implementation of Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution to disputed lands. Maliki made a formal announcement to compensate the returning refuges on April 21, 2010 by the document numbered 2920.
Some of the refugees say they were disappointed with the decision, and that is why they had trespassed by building homes. But some of them are still in rented houses, as they are waiting for the implementation of the decision to take place.
Failaq says that when he was given a 10 million Iraqi dinars check as compensation, he was told to build a house on un-owned land and make it his own. He also said, “They told me they don’t care.”
According to Article 140 of the Iraqi constitution, the refugees who were expelled from their locations in the time of the former regime shall be compensated with 10 million ids after their return to their original locations. Some 26,848 families have been included in the compensation plan so far.
Muhamad Khalil, the chairman of the Arab list in the KPC and a member of the Article 140 Implementation Committee said, “The decision was meant to provide refugees with lands after their return, but the refugees occupied lands and trespassed before they were given lands.” The matter was discussed in the KPC according to Khalil, but the decision has since been halted, “Because the lands to the east and north of Kirkuk are occupied illegally,” Khalil said.
In October, a high delegation of the Iraqi government visited Kirkuk. Dindar Dosky, who was Minister of Migration & Displaced (MoMD) at the time said, “The illegal houses in Failaq, Panja Ali, and Mu’askar Khalid neighborhoods will be made legal and registered for the refugees.”
Bakhtyar Ismael was another refugee who was building an illegal house, and who stated that “The municipality does not begin the process of giving refugees lands, that’s why we have built houses illegally.” He also urged officials to decide on whether to register their illegal lands, or give them lands, adding that “It’s not time to put refugees in political bidding.”
Narmeen Osman, the former deputy chairman of the High Committee of Article 140 Implementation attributed the issue to the Municipality system by saying that “The reason of not implementing the decision is the municipality system, even those who were given lands are very few.” She said because available lands are disputed, no land can be distributed before resolving these disputes. Osman also urged the resolution of the issue of disputed lands as soon as possible, to provide the returning refugees with lands.
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