The remains of 596 Barzanis have been found in mass graves in southern Iraq. They were returned home, to the Barzan area where they have been laid to rest in unmarked graves, without being identified through DNA testing. Thousands of others are still missing.
The atrocity was an act of collective punishment of the Barzanis, whose leaders were active in Kurdish revolts against the Iraqi regime. Men and boys were the primary targets, but women, children, and the elderly were all victims. Thirty-eight years later, the wounds are still fresh for the survivors and family members.
"My mother and others have been waiting for their loved ones to return for 38 years. They were forced from their homes and people never saw them again, except for some fragments of bone and clothing,” said Rebwar Ramazan, head of Barzani martyrs and Anfal affairs.
A new monument to honour the memories of the dead and missing has been built in Barzan, northern Erbil province. The tear-drop shaped monument represents the tears shed by the mothers who weep for their sons. Construction began in 2012 and it will be opened to the public on Saturday, the 38th anniversary, though there will be no ceremony because of coronavirus restrictions.
Every village in Barzan bears the scars of the genocidal campaign.
In the Christian village of Bedyal, two people were killed simply because they wore the red jamana (turban) of their tribe. Georges Yohenna’s brother was one of those killed. He had been told that if he wore a blue turban instead of the Barzan red, his life would be saved. “How can I throw it away? It is my identity. We are Barzanis,” was his brother’s response.
“They took him away like a partridge in a cage and never brought him back,” said Yohenna.
The crimes against the Barzan tribe were part of the Baathist regime’s genocidal Anfal campaign to exterminate the Kurds. Anfal – the eighth chapter, or Surah, in the Quran – was the codename used by Baathists for the slaughter. It literally translates as the spoils of war. More than 182,000 people were killed and over 4,500 villages destroyed in eight phases of the Anfal campaign in the 1980s that culminated with the chemical weapon attack on Halabja.
The Iraqi Supreme Court has recognized the Anfal campaign as constituting genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, however, the international community is largely yet to do so.
Translation and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed
