ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani called on the Iraqi government on Friday to compensate Feyli Kurds, whose properties were confiscated by the former regime before 2003, on the 45th anniversary of the Feyli Kurds genocide.

“We honor the memory of the victims of Feyli Kurds genocide, who were killed in a horrific wave because of their Kurdish identity,” Prime Minister Barzani wrote on X. “After 45 years, it is time the federal government compensates the families.”

Barzani urged Baghdad to fulfill its “legal and constitutional responsibilities” towards Feyli Kurds and compensate them for the losses suffered under the regime of Saddam Huessein.

The Feyli Kurds, once a prominent part of Iraq's urban elite, faced severe persecution following the rise of the Baath Party in 1968. Accused of supporting the Kurdish Nationalist Liberation Movement, they were subjected to systematic exclusion and deportation.

Beginning in 1969, over 70,000 Feylis were deported to Iran following spurious claims by the state denying their Iraqi heritage, and many were removed from state institutions and professional sectors.

The oppression escalated in 1980 with Saddam Hussein's Decree 666, which revoked the citizenship of 360,000 Feylis, confiscated their properties, and led to mass deportations. Over 15,000 Feylis disappeared, either killed or lost in the country’s many prisons.

In 2011, the Iraqi Parliament recognized these events as genocide. Efforts to address the injustices began in 2019, focusing on property rights and public employment.

Masoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), for his part, commended Feyli Kurds as having played “a crucial role in the Kurdistan liberation movement.”

“Committing genocide against Feyli Kurds was part of a systematic plot by the former Baath regime to annihilate the Kurdistan nation,” President Barzani wrote on the 45th anniversary of the genocide.

Numbered around 1.5 million people, the Feylis still struggle with legal and political challenges, exacerbated by ongoing disputes between Iraq's central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani met with a number of Feyli Kurdish families in Baghdad on Wednesday, pledging a set of measures to address the injustices perpetrated against them by the Baath regime, including rehabilitating Feyli neighborhoods in Diyala and Wasit provinces where the majority of the minority Kurdish group live.