Arabs leave as Kurds go home

One of the biggest humanitarian problems facing the new Iraq is resettlement of entire communities who were displaced under the old regime.

This is particularly acute in the northern city of Kirkuk, where tens of thousands of Kurds were forced from their homes.

The BBC's Dumeetha Luthra has been there to witness their homecoming:

A sense of coming home in Kirkuk, for some

Kirkuk has a serious problem that is very much its own.

Returning Kurd refugees are demanding their old homes back, evicting Arab families who moved in during the 1980s and '90s.

It is creating a different kind of tension as the two groups begin to face off.

Al-Boetha lies just south of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk - a tiny village, it used to have 90 Arab families, now there are none.

In the space of less than two weeks its ethnicity has totally changed, as returning Kurds reclaim what they feel is morally theirs.

Since its fall, Kirkuk's Kurds have been demanding their own lands back.

It doesn't matter to them that the Arabs were given legal property rights.

Don't ask where I'm going, I don't know

Arab resident

As far as they are concerned, that was during Saddam Hussein's regime - he no longer holds sway and now they have the power of eviction.

Under Saddam there was a planned campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Kurds and the two other ethnic groups, Turkmen and Assyrian.

More than 100,000 were forcibly evicted from their homes.

Saddam Hussein wanted to repopulate the mainly Kurdish north with Arabs from the south, in an attempt to make the area around the major oil fields ethnically loyal.

The Arabs were given money by the Baathist government to move north, and now they are being told to leave.

Most are philosophical - they accept that the Kurds should perhaps come back and rule here but are concerned about their own future.

Legal appeal

"I don't know where I'll go," says Rajeh.

"A lot of families are just living in one room - in a yard, even in an animal shed - so don't ask where I'm going, I don't know."

Rajeh loads up his goods. The truck is filled with rusting bed frames, old wardrobes, the accumulated paraphernalia of a home.

"Before we've even left our house, it's been booked by other people. They've painted the new names outside.

"They've broken the lock on the door. I don't know who they are. What they are doing only means that when the Arabs rule this area, we will come back and reclaim this and then when the Kurds come back it will happen again.

"This has to resolved legally".

But one of the new residents, Harish Sartib, says they have done nothing to push Rajeh and the other Arab families out.

'Freedom and independence'

Harish says he's a civilian but in his jacket are several grenades, a Kalashnikov swings from his shoulder and his ammunition belt is full.

He says the Arabs are going because they want to.

"No one has asked the Arabs to leave but they knew they occupied this land. This land belongs to the Kurdish tribes," says Harish.

It's a difficult conundrum - everyone feels justice is on their side.

The Kurds have suffered hugely under the former regime and feel their time has come for some wrongs to be righted.

I'm not guilty, they're not guilty - it's Saddam's fault

Jwan, Kirkuk returnee

The only problem is, others are now enduring similar hardships, and the cycle continues.

In Kirkuk, Jwan Jumah's children are getting used to their new home.

They were born in exile. Four days ago they all returned from the north.

They have been living as refugees, now they're back in Kirkuk in the home they were forced to leave 15 years ago.

For Jwan it's a triumphant homecoming.

< She's unrepentant over forcing the Arab family who were living here to leave.

"I'm not guilty, they're not guilty - it's Saddam's fault. This house belongs to us. It's our house, so we must live here," she says.

Human Rights Watch, in a report this week, accused the authorities of doing little to solve this problem.

But in a newly burgeoning state structure where a legal framework hasn't yet been created, there is very little they can do.

The Kurds feel they've waited long enough for this moment. The Arabs are retreating to their tribal belts and the divisions are being exacerbated.

There may be acceptance now but everyone is biding their time, waiting for their turn.

It's a sobering reality for what lies ahead in Iraq's future.