Thousands of sheep head to the Region to escape drought in their original areas.

Many Arab sheep keepers from the center of the country have immigrated to Kurdistan Region seeking better meadows as their areas face a worsening drought.

At the gateway of a hill in Duhok city, Shaaban Suhaib Muhammad, 38, was sitting among his young friends, close to his flock of sheep. He was breeding his sheep and found out difficulty in shepherding his folk in such new and rugged mountainous place which is totally unlike his flatted origin.

Muhammad was wearing Arabic clothing, including a dishdasha, a white gown that covers the entire body. He seemed uncomfortable climbing the hill in his dishdasha. Kurdish clothes, he said, seemed more suitable for those who come to this mountainous place.
"I can hardly understand this reality; I haven't seen such a situation before that the sheep always go away because they aren't accustomed to such a place," he said. Muhammad is breeding more than 300 sheep and came here from the Jazeera flats southwest of Mosul.

He and three of his cousins have obtained licenses to move their flock of more than 2,000 sheep to Duhok.

"The situation was different in the Jazeera flats, because there was a lot of grass and I wasn't afraid of the sheep dying," said Muhammad, referring to the past while observing his thin sheep.

As hundreds of flocks of sheep have come to the Region, market prices have lowered from more than 100,000 ID per sheep to 40,000-50,000 ID.

Sinjar town Mayor Dukhail Qassim Hasoun said that the more than 150 sheep keepers that moved to the Sinjar areas from Al Jazeera because of drought will move to areas in upper Kurdistan to seek meadows.

Botan Muhsin, the mayor of Shekhan district, 50 kilometers north of Mosul city, said that thousands of sheep have been brought to his district because of the lack of hay in their original areas.

Muhammad also explained that friends in his group complain about the security agencies in Kurdistan.

"We have taken security measurements with those who have come from places where terrorist activities are, and we have to be aware; we know that these people are simple ones, but we have to carry out our duties," said a security source who declined to be mentioned.

Dr. Luqman Tayib, director of the veterinary hospital in Duhok city, declared in a press statement that the transition of sheep to the city from other places has caused the spread of various diseases not previously detected here and medical measures must be taken.