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KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Hundreds of Kurdish
families are fleeing a town in northern Iraq for the
nearby city of Kirkuk after the murder of several
Kurds fuelled fears of ethnic cleansing, local
officials said on Monday.
Seven Kurds have been gunned down in the mainly Arab
town of Hawija in 10 days, most of them on crowded
streets in broad daylight in what Kurds say is a
campaign to force them out.
Rezkar Ali, a Kirkuk city council member for the
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, said 543 Kurdish
families, perhaps some 3,000 people, had arrived in
recent days in the city. Kirkuk is coveted by Kurds,
Arabs and Turkish-speaking Turkmen, not least
because it sits on nearly half of Iraq's oil
reserves.
Most of those who have fled are staying with
relatives in Kirkuk, some 250 km (160 miles) north
of Baghdad.
Kak Salar Sabah, a Kurdish resident of Hawija, said
he left with his family of seven for Kirkuk, where
he is staying with a cousin at his small house in
one of the poorest neighborhoods.
"I ran away from there with my children because I
know that the murderers don't distinguish between
young and old, political and non-political," Sabah
said.
"We have been living in Hawija for over 60 years in
peace and those who were killed had also been living
there for decades but fell victim to political
dealings."
Since the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein
last year, Kurdish, Turkmen and Arab groups have
clashed several times as they wrestle for dominance
in the Kirkuk region.
But tensions are running particularly high as the
Jan. 30 election approaches, and politicians have
called for the poll there to be postponed because of
fears of violence.
Under Saddam, Kurds and Turkmen were driven from
Kirkuk and many outlying villages to make way for
Saddam's fellow Sunni Arabs -- an "Arabisation"
aimed at securing Arab control over Kirkuk and its
estimated 10 billion barrels of crude oil.
Kurds fleeing Hawija, 70 km (40 miles) southwest of
Kirkuk on the main oil pipeline route, fear the
process may be repeating itself, although local Arab
political figures and the chiefs of Arab tribes have
condemned the murders of the Kurds.
Kurdish leaders and parties have blamed the attacks
on the U.S.-trained Iraqi police and National Guard,
as well as Hawija council members, who they say are
backing the perpetrators.
They have called on the Iraqi interim government and
U.S. forces to intervene to prevent an escalation
into all-out ethnic conflict that the area is all
too familiar with.
Villagers found a mass grave near Kirkuk this month
that may contain up to 50 bodies. It is one of
dozens of mass graves that dot the Kurdish north,
autonomous since 1991, a testimony to decades of
ethnic killing and forces population transfers.
An offensive known as Anfal (The Spoils of War)
waged by Saddam against the Kurds in the late 1980s
killed tens of thousands, some in poison gas
attacks, and drove out many more.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.
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