Shafaq News/ In the capital of the Kurdistan Region, Erbil, ceremonies were held on Saturday to honor Feili Kurdish Martyrs' Day, marking the 44th anniversary of the genocide perpetrated against the Feili Kurdish community during the era of the former regime.
Participants gathered in a ceremony organized by the Feili Kurdish House to pay tribute to the memory of those who were killed and to call for action to address the legacy of this tragic chapter in Kurdish history.
Shafaq News Agency reported that the attendees urged the Iraqi government to spare no effort in repatriating the remains of those who went missing during the 1980s atrocities and restoring rights and properties belonging to the Feili Kurdish community.
Feyli Kurds are an ethnic group that historically inhabited both sides of the Zagros mountain range along the Iraq-Iran border.
According to the Minority Rights Group, Today, the estimated 1.5 million Feili Kurds in Iraq live mainly in Baghdad, as well as the eastern parts of Diyala, Wasit, Maysan, and Basra governorates, as well as in the Kurdistan region.
During Saddam Hussein's regime, which spanned nearly three decades, thousands of young Feyli Kurds were forcibly relocated to undisclosed destinations, their fates shrouded in uncertainty, with indications suggesting that many perished in custody or were subjected to extrajudicial executions and buried in mass graves.
The Ba'athist regime initiated a concerted campaign in the late 1970s and early 1980s to uproot the Feyli Kurds, stripping them of their Iraqi citizenship and seizing their assets. They endured deportation, displacement, arrests, and executions during the tenures of former Presidents Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr in 1970 and 1975, followed by Saddam Hussein in 1980.
In 2010, the Supreme Criminal Court rendered its verdict on the crimes of displacement and confiscation of rights perpetrated against the Feyli Kurds, unequivocally designating them as acts of genocide.
In December 2008, the case concerning the Feylis was forwarded to the Iraqi High Criminal Court. Following 44 hearings in 2010, the court officially recognized the genocide of the Feylis.