Kirkuk Olympic Stadium to be evacuated

KIRKUK / IraqiNews.com: Nearly 450 displaced families have left their temporary places of residence at the Kirkuk Olympic Stadium under an evacuation process ordered by Iraqi President Jalal al-Talabani. “Around 450 families out of a total of 485 have already left the stadium, while 35 families remain there,” the director of the Youth and Sports Department in the province, Jabbar Mohammed Amin, told IraqiNews.com news agency. The departing families have been given 5-10 billion Iraqi dinars each to help them find other residences, Amin noted. A total of ID20 billion has been allocated to renovate the stadium Kirkuk Olympic Stadium is a multi-use stadium in Kirkuk. It is currently used mostly for football matches and it also has an athletics track. The stadium holds 30,000. Hundreds of displaced families have taken residence in the stadium after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Kirkuk, an oil-rich and mixed city of Kurds, Turkmen, Christians and Arabs, lies 250 km northeast of the Iraqi capital Baghdad. SS (S)/SR 1