Mass grave with Kurdish Anfal victims found in southern Iraq
Human remains found in at a Kurdish mass grave containing bodies of Kurds being killed during the former Baathist regime’s deadly Anfal campaign against the Kurds near Zahko, Iraqi Kurdistan, July 15, 2005. Photo: Courtesy/Wikipedia
SAMAWAH, southern Iraq,— Local authorities from a southern Iraqi province began on Friday the exhumation of a mass grave containing bodies of Kurds believed to have been killed during the former Baathist regime’s deadly Anfal campaign against the Kurds.
Governor of Muthanna province Ahmed Manfi Jawda said Friday that a mass grave containing the remains of Kurdish victims of the Anfal campaign has been discovered in the Samawah desert.
“All the bodies in the graves are Kurdish, who were killed during the Ba’athist regime’s reign,” Jawda said.
“Most of them are women and children,” Manfi told K24 TV regarding the work team’s preliminary examinations.
They have so far exhumed “over 300 bodies,” Manfi said, adding that workers had also retrieved various accompanying documentation and that the results the forensic investigation will be announced in the near future.
He added that it could be the largest such site found in the desert of al-Salman, a southwestern district of Muthanna Province where the notorious Nigret Salman prison camp is located.
Spokesperson for Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Martyrs and Anfal Affairs Fuad Osman said that the ministry did not have any knowledge about the mass grave.
“We have contacted officials in Baghdad, but we have not received any information about it yet,” Osman said.
Specialized federal government teams are currently working to uncover and identify remains in mass graves located in the southern provinces, including al-Muthana.
Between 1986 and 1989, during Iraq’s war with Iran, the government of Saddam Hussein undertook a campaign of genocide against the Kurds to the north. Spearheaded by the infamous Ali Hassan al-Majid, also known as “Chemical Ali,” the operation saw the deaths of up to 182,000 ethnic Kurds, some of whom were transferred to the desert areas in southern Iraq and killed there.
The discovery of classified military and security agency documents following the fall of the regime in 2003 has led to the discovery of a number of mass graves related to the Anfal campaign.
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