Shafaq News- Erbil

A documentary screening in Erbil has renewed attention to the persecution of Iraq’s Feyli Kurds, a Shiite Kurdish minority whose forced displacement and denationalization were ruled genocide more than a decade ago, with key reparations still unimplemented.

“The Forgotten Kurds,” which premiered last month, documents systematic abuses suffered by Feyli families under the former Iraqi regime, including deportation, confiscation of property, and the stripping of citizenship. The film focuses on Feyli communities in eastern Iraq, particularly in Badra, Mandali, and Zarbatia.

Directed by Mohammed Haj Qader, the documentary follows the story of a Feyli Kurdish man who joins the Iraqi army, is captured during the Iran–Iraq war, and spends years in detention before returning to find his family forcibly displaced and his home abandoned. Haj Qader told Shafaq News the project aimed to document a history that has received limited public and media attention despite the scale of crimes committed against the Feyli Kurds.

Actor Halkawt Zaher, who appears in the film, also told our agency that the documentary highlights the price the Feyli community paid for its Kurdish identity and stressed the need for greater media focus on "marginalized Kurdish communities" whose suffering has long been overlooked.

Feyli Kurds were subjected to systematic persecution in the 1970s and especially in 1980, including mass deportations, enforced disappearances, denationalization, and killings. In November 2010, Iraq’s High Criminal Court ruled that crimes committed against the Feyli Kurds constituted genocide, ordering the restoration of citizenship, compensation for victims, and clarification of the fate of missing persons. Government decisions issued in 2010 and 2011 pledged corrective measures, but according to Feyli representatives and rights advocates, many of those commitments remain only partially implemented.

Read more: Stateless at Home — The forgotten fate of Iraq’s Feyli Kurds