ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Mass demonstrations continue as teachers in Halabja go on striking over wage delays, according to Rebeen Yar Ahmed, a Rudaw reporter in Halabja on Saturday.
Ahmed said the teachers are refusing to break the strike and return back to schools until they receive their three-month-late salaries.
“We hope the teachers will get paid very soon so we will be able to go back to school and continue studying,” students who also took part in the protest told Rudaw.
In recent weeks hundreds of teachers have taken to the streets in Sulaimani and Erbil after declaring a strike over the delayed salaries. Representatives of the protesting teachers told Rudaw they refused to go back to work before receiving their full salaries, which have been withheld since July.
The Kurdistan Regional Government says the ongoing war with ISIS militants, the influx of over 1.3 million refugees and Baghdad’s freezing of the KRG budget since February 2014 have coupled with falling oil prices to contribute to the unprecedented budget and salary crisis.
Teachers received a month's salary on Monday, but say they will continue striking until they receive all three month's back pay.
On October 8, At least nine people, including five policemen and four demonstrators, were wounded in street protests over delayed salaries in Sulaimani, the city’s mayor told Rudaw.
“They were injured in clashes between stone-throwing demonstrators and unarmed riot police who tried to contain the protests,” Mayor Bakhtiar Abdulrahman told Rudaw, rejecting reports that police fired live ammunition to disperse the angry protesters.
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