Yesterday (23 August 2020), at the village of Arab Koiy in Kirkuk’s Daquq district, the home of a Kaka’i family was set on fire. Only an elderly woman resides in the house currently. Her son was displaced in 2017.
“After the events of 16 October 2017, I became displaced and have been residing in Erbil. Only my mother stayed in the house. She refused to leave the village. She went to see relatives for an hour yesterday, and some unknown persons have burned the house,” said Kawa Raf’at Kaka’i.
Kawa is a member of a security apparatus and has fled to Erbil after force of the Federal Government retook the area in 2017.
He further told KirkukNow: “The window of a room on the back side is broken; they have entered the house from there and set it on fire.”
By the time firefighters reached the house, everything inside the house was burned, which according to Kawa was worth thousands of dollars.
Video footage shows the extensive damage caused by the fire, and Kawa’s 70-year-old mother, Azima, is seen wailing and lamenting about the fire.
A police source told KirkukNow: “The family has registered a legal complaint and an investigation has been started. But no suspect has been detained.”
The village of Arab Koiy has a mixed population, consisting of Arabs and Kaka’i Kurds. Before the forces of the Federal Government expelled the Peshmerga forces following the Kurdistan Region independence referendum in 2017, there were 75 Kaka’i families in the village. But currently there are only four families left.
