Today Marks 36th Anniversary of Saddam’s Genocide against Barzanis

Today marks the 36th anniversary of the extermination campaign known as “Anfal” by the former Baath regime against the Barzanis.

On 31st July 1983, former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered his army to arrest thousands of innocent people from Barzanis in Harir, Qushtappa, Bahrka, and Diana of Kurdistan Region, killing them later and putting them in mass graves in the deserts of southern Iraq.

Only two months after the genocidal attack, Saddam proudly said the Kurdish people were “punished and sent to the hell”.

The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal on May 3, 2011 recognized the Anfal of Barzanis as “genocide and crime against humanity”.

More than three decades on, most of the victims of Anfal remain in unidentified mass graves. From 8,000 Barzani victims, the remnants of only 596 people have so far been discovered and returned to Kurdistan.

The occasion comes as specialized teams from Iraq and Kurdistan Region are now working on exhumation of three mass graves they recently discovered in Samawa deserts of southern Iraq.

Officials said the first mass grave contained remains of nearly 100 victim of Anfal campaign, all of who were from Kurdistan’s Garmiyan region.

Later in August, authorities are planning to unearth the other two mass graves.