Kurdistan
A graveyard for victims of the Anfal genocide in Kalar, Sulaimani province on April 13, 2021. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Kurdistan Region leaders on Wednesday commemorated 33 years since the start of the Garmiyan phase of the Anfal campaign against Kurds, calling for compensation for the families of victims from the Iraqi government to be sped up.
The Anfal campaign began in 1986, and was named after the eighth surah in the Quran. More than 182,000 Kurds died in two years of slaughter by then president Saddam Hussein’s regime. April 14, 1988 was when the campaign started in the Garmiyan area in the south of the Kurdistan Region.
Anfal was recognised as a crime against humanity and a war crime by Iraq’s Supreme Court in 2008, but little has been done for Anfal’s survivors or the victims of families.
“The Iraqi government must provide material and mental compensations for the families of the victims,” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said in an official statement on Wednesday. “We are asking the Iraqi government to carry out that legal and moral duty and provide justice.”
President Barzani also called on the international community to recognize the Anfal campaign as genocide.
Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani said on Wednesday that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) “is working to provide more services to the families of Anfal victims and to ensure a dignified life for them” while his government demands “material and mental compensation for the families of the victims of the brutal campaign from the federal government.”
More than 4,500 villages were destroyed during the Anfal campaign according to a Kurdistan Parliament report obtained by Rudaw English.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi called the Anfal campaign a “painful catastrophe”, while President Barham Salih said that compensation for families of victims must be accelerated to “alleviate their sufferings and heal their wounds.”
The Anfal campaign began in 1986, and was named after the eighth surah in the Quran. More than 182,000 Kurds died in two years of slaughter by then president Saddam Hussein’s regime. April 14, 1988 was when the campaign started in the Garmiyan area in the south of the Kurdistan Region.
Anfal was recognised as a crime against humanity and a war crime by Iraq’s Supreme Court in 2008, but little has been done for Anfal’s survivors or the victims of families.
“The Iraqi government must provide material and mental compensations for the families of the victims,” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani said in an official statement on Wednesday. “We are asking the Iraqi government to carry out that legal and moral duty and provide justice.”
President Barzani also called on the international community to recognize the Anfal campaign as genocide.
Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region Masrour Barzani said on Wednesday that the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) “is working to provide more services to the families of Anfal victims and to ensure a dignified life for them” while his government demands “material and mental compensation for the families of the victims of the brutal campaign from the federal government.”
More than 4,500 villages were destroyed during the Anfal campaign according to a Kurdistan Parliament report obtained by Rudaw English.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi called the Anfal campaign a “painful catastrophe”, while President Barham Salih said that compensation for families of victims must be accelerated to “alleviate their sufferings and heal their wounds.”
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