A brief history of the Kurdish Community of Calgary
Kurds have arrived in Calgary almost for four facades, but in a big group, it goes back to the beginning of 1990. Kurdish arrival in a group can be divided into five periods and five groups.
The first group that arrived from the Turkish camps mainly were Kurds from Iraq who fell from Saddam’s attack back in the Anfal offensive. Between 1992 and 1996, almost 400 to 500 individuals were settled in Calgary; besides this first group, other families also arrived in the city of Calgary, but not in a big group.
The second leading group that arrived were Kurdish refugees from Iran who were refugees to Iraq and settled for 25 in the camp of Rumadi. When the war started in Iraq in 2003, the United Nations and other UN organisations made a plan to withdraw them from Camp Altaish; therefore, Canada decided to get a big group to Calgary; between 2003 and 2005, around 50 families arrived in Calgary.
The third group, the other group that arrived in 2016 to 2018, were Kurds from Syria who settled in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan who felt from Assad operations and Turkish interfering.
Fourth group. The last group were Yazidis from Iraqi Kurdistan, mainly from the Shingal district; they arrived between 2017 and 2019. Almost 50 families arrived in Canada, and the majority came from the camps of Duhok after the genocide by ISIS in 2014.
The last group, even though Kurds from Turkey have always been arriving since even before 1990, the big wave started to come in small groups in 2023 because of the last earthquake that happened in Turkey, and the massive damage was in a Kurdish region in southern that country.
It is not easy to indicate the exact number of Kurds living in Calgary but essentially are about 4 to 5 thousand. As Kurds have no country of their own, sometimes Kurds are registered under the official country where they come from, such as Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.
Since the first group arrived in 1990, Kurds have continued to have their associations despite the challenges that most newcomers face when coming to Canada. Up to now, the Kurdish Community has almost six times tried to fund a permanent association. Still, because of the lack of experience and the critical political situation they have, they have never been able to have a united, strong association. To be updated by now, Kurds have Two communities who try to work together to achieve their long-term dream goal. The first one is Calgary Kurdish House – Mala Kurd, which was founded in April/2019, and the Diaspora Community, which was founded in November 2023.
It seems in current days, there are almost Kurds from all parts of Kurdistan in Calgary and almost in most of the other cities in Canada; now it can be their golden time to have a united association, which can be a combination of more than one or a few associations to work in a central principle and to proceed their success as a Kurds and leave behind the points that divide them.
Aram Duhoki – Canada
Picture from the hard work of the Kurdish Community among other communities in Calgary as a nomination in 2004.
