ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraqi army soldiers on Saturday forcibly seized the home of a Kurdish family in northern Kirkuk’s Hasar village.

The house had been previously occupied by the Iraqi army and Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) for nearly five years, after the Iraqi forces seized control of Kirkuk in October 2017. The house was later returned to the Kurdish family, but the Iraqi forces have repeatedly demanded the family evacuates the premises since.

The family told The New Region that soldiers had broken into the house in early June and threatened them that if they do not leave willingly the army will use force to remove them from the property.

There have been no comments from Kurdish or Iraqi officials regarding the incident as of the writing of this article.

Iraqi forces have repeatedly attempted to seize Kurdish properties in Kirkuk since October 2017.

The Iraqi army in mid-February attacked a number of Kurdish farmers, preventing them from cultivating their lands in northern Kirkuk’s Sargaran subdistrict. The attack prompted condemnations from Kurdish leaders, with former Kurdistan Region President and Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani labeling it a “chauvinistic” act.

In early 2024, Iraqi army forces were stationed in Kirkuk’s Newroz neighborhood for several weeks, during which they seized multiple Kurdish homes and ordered the families to vacate, claiming the neighborhood was the official property of the defense ministry.

The land restitution law, ratified by the Iraqi presidency in February, seeks to address property disputes stemming from resolutions enacted during the Ba’ath regime’s Revolutionary Command Council era. The regime transferred the ownership of hundreds of Kurdish and Turkmen properties in Kirkuk to the defense ministry and the municipality starting from the 1970s.