Relatives of Anfal victims in Samawa on April 14, 2022. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The relatives of some of the victims of the Anfal campaign visited Iraq’s Samawah city on the anniversary of the genocide on Thursday, as they sought to find the remains of their loved ones.
The families visited Nugrasalman Citadel in Samawa city of Muthana province, which was used as a prison by Saddam Hussein’s regime during the campaign which began in 1986 and killed more than 182,000 Kurds.
“I wonder what condition they were in, such as thirst and hunger, as they had fallen in the hands of these brutal people,” Said Miheddin, a relative of one of the victims, told Rudaw’s Hunar Hamid.
When the relatives saw a hole, they dug it with the hope of finding the remains of the victims.
Ramazan Rostam, a relative of another victim, said that he was confident that his loved one was in the site they had visited. “We have found their clothes,” he said as he dug a hole with his hands. “This is [a piece of] a woman’s clothing, and they were shot with this bullet. This piece of cloth is rotten. I found it there.”
The campaign was carried out over two years. On April 14, 1988, the campaign reached the Garmiyan area in the south of the Kurdistan Region, with the date of the phase of the campaign used to commemorate the anniversary of Anfal each year.
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment