08.2007 - Source: UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Kaka'i in Iraq (general information; current situation) ("UNHCR's Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Iraqi Asylum-seekers") [ID 23143]

"The Kaka’i are a distinct religious group that mainly reside in the areas of Kirkuk (mainly Tareeq Baghdad, Garranata, Wahid Athar, Hay Al-Wasitty, Eskan and Shorja as well as in the District of Daqooq), Mosul (Kalaki Yasin Agha area) and Khanaqin (mainly Mirkhas and Kandizard areas) in the Governorate of Diyala, but also in villages in the Kurdistan Region close to the Iranian border. Kaka’i can also be found in major cities such as Baghdad, Sulaymaniyah and Erbil. There is little information about this group as it favours secretive religious practices. The religion is monotheistic and syncretistic, having incorporated elements from several religions, including Islam.

The Jund Al-Islam, and later its successor Ansar Al-Islam, which are radical Kurdish home-grown Islamist groups and said to have links with the Al-Qa’eda network, exercised strict control over a number of villages near the town of Halabja in the Governorate of Sulaymaniyah as of September 2001. The group ruled the areas based on an extreme interpretation of Shari’a law and launched a “holy war” against what it considered “blasphemers and secularists”. While their primary focus was the PUK, the Kaka’i, living in three villages in the area and considered “heretics” by the Jund Al-Islam, were also targeted. Human Rights Watch (HRW) described that the villages were raided on 4 September 2001. The residents were rounded up and ordered to adhere to the Jund Al-Islam’s interpretation of Islam.

Furthermore, several Kaka’i shrines were destroyed. Reportedly, the majority of 450 households fled the villages and have to date been unable to return due to the presence of landmines as well as the lack of services.

Since the fall of the former regime, the Kaka’i living in the areas under central government administration have come under pressure by religious extremists who consider them “infidels”. UNHCR has received information of threats, kidnappings and assassinations of Kaka’i, mainly in Kirkuk. UNHCR was informed that Muslim religious leaders in Kirkuk asked people not to purchase anything from “infidel” Kaka’i shop owners. In addition, Kaka’i might be targeted on the basis of their Kurdish ethnicity. UNHCR received information that in Mosul, the Kaka’i no longer dare to reveal their identity as Kaka’i.

It is believed that most Kaka’i have been displaced since the fall of the former regime. For example, in the end of November 2006, Hewler Post, a bi-weekly paper issued in Erbil, reported that 100 Kaka’i Kurds fled from the Urouba quarter in downtown Kirkuk after having received threats from “terrorists”. UNHCR has received information that some 250-300 Kaka’i families from Baghdad were displaced to Khanaqin."

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