A local official reported that at least one civilian was killed, and eight others were injured during rival protests in the multi-ethnic city of Kirkuk in Iraq on Saturday. This incident occurred amid escalating tensions in the region.
The circumstances surrounding the death were not immediately clear, according to Ziad Khalaf, the director of the local health authority, who added that those injured had sustained injuries from bullets, stones, or glass. One of the injured individuals was a member of the security forces, as stated by Khalaf.
A police spokesperson from Kirkuk, Amer Shuani, informed regional broadcaster Kurdistan 24 that the toll included “one dead and five injured.”
In response to the escalating violence, authorities imposed a curfew in the evening as the rival protests, involving Kurdish residents on one side and Turkmen and Arabs on the other, turned violent. Earlier in the day, police had been deployed to maintain a buffer zone between the rival groups. To disperse Kurdish demonstrators, warning shots were fired, and vehicles on a main avenue were set on fire, according to an AFP correspondent.
Tensions had been escalating in Kirkuk for nearly a week. The city has a historical dispute, as it has been contested between the federal government in Baghdad and the authorities in the autonomous Kurdistan region in the north.
The turmoil began when Arab and Turkmen demonstrators initiated a sit-in near the headquarters of the Iraqi security forces in Kirkuk province on Monday. This was in response to reports that Prime Minister Mohamed Shia al-Sudani had ordered the handover of the site to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which had previously occupied it.
Kurdish protesters attempted to reach the headquarters on Saturday, according to an AFP correspondent.
Following the violence, Prime Minister Sudani declared a curfew in Kirkuk and ordered “extensive security operations in the areas affected by the riots,” as stated in a release from his office. He urged all parties to contribute to preventing further conflict and preserving security, stability, and order in Kirkuk Governorate.
Sudani, who also serves as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, instructed security forces in the province to fulfill their responsibilities in maintaining security and upholding the rule of law.
In 2014, the KDP and the peshmerga, the security forces of the Kurdistan region, took control of Kirkuk, an oil-producing region in northern Iraq. However, federal troops expelled them in the autumn of 2017 following an unsuccessful referendum on Kurdish independence.
Despite historical tensions and rocky relations, Sudani’s government has generally managed to maintain relatively friendly relations between Baghdad and Arbil, the Kurdish capital.
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