'Everyone needs to be where they belong'.

Anwar Mohammad Nouri and his family were forced to leave their hometown in Kirkuk during the Kurdish Uprising in 1991. They found refuge in Topzawa Camp in Erbil, where they would reside in squalid conditions for three years. "We waited and waited for news of what would happen to us. We lived in terrible conditions there. After the no fly zone we still couldn't go back to Kirkuk because I was a Kurd and a Peshmarga too," recalls Nouri, 53. Aa "We eventually left Topzawa because we were hopeless and relocated to another camp. We went to Binislawa in Erbil until the liberation process in 2003. Then, we returned to our village and rebuilt our lives. Although our income is good and we have our own house, the security situation is terrible. We are always living in fear. We returned because it is my home and everyone needs to be where they belong." After the first Gulf war in 1991, the ruling Baath regime waged a campaign to eradicate the Kurdish people of Iraq. This involved bringing Arab families into residential areas, which were predominately populated by Kurds. As this was carried out in the zone above the 32nd parallel of the no fly zone, it added to the controversy. The deportation process of Kurdish families in Kirkuk was part of a bigger policy of Arabization, which resulted in the creation of many camps such as the Daratu camp in the city, the Topzawa camp in the province of Erbil and the Bardaqaraman camp in Slemani. Aa These were just a few of the camps that the former regime used to keep close watch over internally displaced people and prevent them from joining Kurdish revolutionary forces. In addition to the social and political pressures used by the Baath regime, poverty was rife and space was cramped in these camps. Harem Abbas, 25, and his family, they were spared the wretchedness of these camps, but forced to live through other hardships in foreign lands. "After the destruction of our village in 1985 we left for Chamchamal and then when the uprising happened we went to Iran to Saqiz. We thought that the Kurdish cause was hopeless, so we decided to go to Pakistan," he recounts. "We stayed there for two years and after the establishment of the no fly zone we returned to Slemani. After the liberation, we returned to our own city." Abbas says that returning to Kirkuk was difficult, as it took time to readjust: "We were used to the stability of Slemani whereas living in Kirkuk meant you were always living in fear. I couldn't handle it so I returned to Slemani but the rest of my family are still living there." Nishtiman Osman, 27, was among those who never left Kirkuk. "Our financial situation wasn't good and so like other Kurds we couldn't afford to go abroad," she says. "During the Baath regime we lived in appalling conditions because my father and brothers couldn't work freely and a number of times our papers to be relocated came but after bribes they left us alone." Osman is grateful that living conditions have improved now, but, she says: "Much more needs to be done. Public services need more attention especially water, electricity and road works." Simko Bahroz, a Kurdish historian, explains that plans for 'the eradication of the Kurdish nation' date back to 'the advent of the religion of Islam into the area when Arabs were brought here.' "Successive Iraqi governments have tried to Arabize especially Kirkuk by vacating Kurdish villages and replacing them with Arabs such as the villages of Hasari Gawra and Saqizi as well as the villages surrounding Daquq and Khurmatw," he says. Between the years 1872 and 1873, a foreign engineer visited the city of Kirkuk and evaluated its population at been approximately 12,000-15,000. He pointed out that except for 40 Armenian families, all the other families inside Kirkuk were Kurdish. Another census was carried out by historian Amin Zaki Beg in Kirkuk in 1930 and sent to King Faisal I in a letter. In the letter he pointed out that upon completion of the census, 51 percent of the inhabitants of Kirkuk were Kurdish followed by 21.5 percent Turkmen, 20 percent Arab and 7.5 percent that were made up of the other smaller minorities such as Armenians and Assyrians.

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