Investigative Reports
The Demographic Trap Renewed: Identity Politics and the Failure of
Fakherddin Salih, a Kurd who returned to Kirkuk after 2003, is one of hundreds of Kurdish families threatened with eviction from their homes. For nearly a year, Salih and others guarded their homes, fearing forced displacement by the Iraqi army, pressured by "influential Arabs" seeking to reclaim residential and agricultural lands that the Ba'ath regime had granted them after seizing them from their original Kurdish and Turkmen owners. This is a deep-rooted and recurrent conflict over property, fueled by partisan interests and constantly shifting administrative and security power dynamics in the oil-rich province, which is home to a mix of…
Peace Talks Begin, But the Doors Remain Shut: Displaced Kurds
On July 3, 2024, Dawood Youkhanna (72 years old), along with his family and other residents of the village of Miska in the Amedi district (70 km northeast of Duhok), fled their homes and abandoned their farms—their main source of income—after their village turned into a battlefield between PKK fighters and Turkish forces deployed in the surrounding area. The fighting caused fires that destroyed farmland and damaged many homes. “It’s been almost a year since we left. We’ve endured harsh conditions and still live with the hope of returning,” Dawood says in a low voice, expressing his hope that the…
Redrawing Nineveh: Are Minority Needs Being Servedor Manipulated?”
As soon as Nineveh was fully liberated from ISIS in the summer of 2017, political movements started to emerge, particularly around the time of each election, regarding its administrative future. Representatives of minorities—including Turkmen, Christians, Shabaks, and Yazidis—repeatedly announced their desire to transform their areas (Tel Afar, Sinjar, and the Nineveh Plain) into separate provinces. These aspirations turned into formal efforts by political parties and forces, especially after the Iraqi Parliament voted on April 14, 2025, to approve the creation of Halabja Province—making it the fourth province in the Kurdistan Region and the 19th in Iraq. Minority Areas Nineveh spans…
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Investment Paralysis in Iraq is Fueling the Housing Shortage
With high hopes of owning a home for the first time in his life, Haider Abu Bilal (67), a retired employee of the Ministry of Electricity, signed a contract in 2020 to purchase a horizontal residential unit in the “Al-Firdous” investment housing project in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad. He was…
Brick Factory Workers in Iraq: Facing Death, Injuries, and Disease
On the morning of January 1, 2024, 28-year-old Hussein Ne’ma was going about his usual duties as a furnace operator at the “Al-Janabi” brick factory in the Zaid Bin Ali area of Babil province, southern Iraq. As he stood atop the brick-constructed furnace, refueling it with black oil, the roof…
Under Official and Clerical Protection: The Boom of Fraudulent Shrines
Alawiya bint al-Hasan is the name given to a shrine established last year in the agricultural area of Al-Bu Hadari in Kufa district, Najaf governorate, southern Iraq. It joins hundreds of shrines, maqams, and religious sites that suddenly appeared in Iraq over the past two decades, which specialists describe as…
Is Mosul Truly the City of Forty Prophets?
Khadija Ahmed, 71, still adheres to a tradition she has followed since her youth: a weekly visit to the Prophet Jonah’s Mosque on the eastern side of Mosul. She only stopped during the years of ISIS control, when the group prohibited such visits and ultimately blew up the mosque in…
The Silencing Machine: Killings, Trials, and Isolation of Journalists Intensify
On December 22, 2024, the Karkh Court of First Instance issued a ruling fining Iraqi journalist Qais Hassan five million Iraqi dinars in a lawsuit filed against him by former Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi in August 2024 on charges of “insult and defamation.” Hassan is just one of dozens of…
The Demographic Change Haunts Minorities in the Nineveh Plain
Since Imad Zuhair (a pseudonym, 47 years old) returned to Qaraqosh, the center of the Hamdaniya district in the Nineveh Plain, after it was liberated from ISIS in late 2016, he has not stopped thinking about leaving the country as soon as he finds a suitable opportunity for himself and…
Marginalization policies and lack of justice… The Yezidis of Sheikhan
After spending nearly four decades in Sheikhan, Hadi Dubbani (57 years old) left the country with his family, leaving the Yezidi town located north of Mosul to settle in Germany, as did dozens of his relatives. He says in a choked voice: “ISIS destroyed everything for us, it turned our…
Documents Found After the Fall of Assad Show Syrian Intelligence
A file discovered at General Intelligence Directorate headquarters details an operation to investigate SIRAJ, a Syrian journalist collective that is part of the OCCRP network.
