Gulf News

Boundary divides Arabs and Kurds

Since 2014, Iraq’s Kurds have expanded the territory they control by about half at the expense of Iraq

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As Omar Rashad’s combine clutters down the barley field in northern Iraq, the farmer shields his eyes from the scorching sun and points at the tall berm at the end of his land, just past a cluster of agricultur­al buildings.

The berm he points to marks the de facto border between federal Iraq and its self-governing Kurdish region in the north. It was built in November after Kurdish Peshmerga forces pushed about 5 kilometres into the Nineveh plains outside Mosul with the support of the USled coalition, retaking a cluster of towns and villages from Daesh group.

Now, more than half of Rashad’s land, some 20 hectares (50 acres), is on the other side of the line in Iraqi federal territory. Crossing over to it is so complicate­d — requiring daily approval from both Iraqi and Kurdish authoritie­s — that he has given up.

‘We’ve lost our land’

“This is our village and here is the berm. The berm divides our land into two halves,” said Rashad, an Iraqi who fled to Kurdish territory when Daesh militants came to his town. “It’s our land and we want to plant and harvest there. But now we can’t. You can say that we lost that half.”

Since 2014, Iraq’s Kurds have expanded the territory they control by about half at the expense of Iraq.

The status of some of these areas, such as the city of Kirkuk, is supposed to be decided by plebiscite under Iraq’s constituti­on. Others, including most of the governorat­e of Nineveh, technicall­y belong to Iraq.

The berm, with fortified positions every half kilometre or so, cuts through the land in a fairly straight line, but it separates some communitie­s from their land, from their administra­tive centres and from each other.

“If you want to do anything on the other side, you can’t. The berm has paralysed everything,” Rashad said.

“This is my land, my father’s and grandfathe­r’s land, how can they divide our land like this?”

Similar issues

On the Iraqi side of the berm, in the village of Darawish, farmer Raad Khalil is faced with an additional problem. He, too, has lost access to land — about 8 hectares (20 acres) — leaving him dependent on aid. But he has also in effect been left without a government.

“All government functions are in Bashiqa,” he said, referring to the biggest town in the area that is now on the Kurdish side of the line. “Health care, education, electricit­y. Now you have to go to Mosul for everything but then they tell you that we belong to Bashiqa and I must go there.”

Crossing from Iraq into the Kurdish region is even more complicate­d than the other way around because the Peshmerga demand a Kurdish residency permit or a sponsor.

The berm separates some small communitie­s from themselves, though for now not everybody seems to mind. Arriving in Abu Jarbuah on the Iraqi side of the berm, Shams Al Deen Nour Al Deen, a Kurd, said he had been given a day permit to come over for a relative’s funeral.

 ?? AP ?? Displaced Iraqi families cook next to a berm created by Kurdish forces in the Nineveh plain, northeast of Mosul.
AP Displaced Iraqi families cook next to a berm created by Kurdish forces in the Nineveh plain, northeast of Mosul.

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