SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq: Schools were closed for the third day running Tuesday in the Sulaimaniyah province of Iraq’s Kurdistan region, where the cash-strapped administration has not paid salaries for months.

“More than 2,000 government offices and schools are on strike,” said Honer Tawfiq, spokesman for the Sulaimaniyah province in the autonomous Kurdish region.

Teachers and many civil servants have not been paid for three months as Kurdistan and the rest of Iraq struggles to face the huge budget crunch caused by the cost of battling Daesh and low oil prices.

“This farce has to end. No employee has been paid for three months in the whole of Kurdistan,” said Nermeen Mohammed, who teaches at a school in Sulaimaniyah.

“The minister of natural resources keeps announcing a rise in oil production but the salaries still aren’t coming at the end of the month,” she complained.

Thousands of civil servants were on strike in several sectors, with the exception of security personnel, health workers and employees in other key institutions.