The Kurdish community have once again commemorated the genocidal Anfal Campaign that was carried out by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein. Between 1986 and 1989, more than 200,000 Kurds were killed by chemical weapons and around 4,500 hamlets and villages destroyed. Victims remain missing, and some mass graves are yet to be opened. Justice has not fully been served.
At the commemoration ceremony in the town of Chamchamal, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the co-leader of Tevgera Azadî, Tara Huseyin, said that the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) administration has caused subsequent massacres by collaborating with the occupying Turkish state. She was proven right again this weekend when Turkish fighter jets bombed a civilian house in Sulaymaniyah (Silêmanî) governorate (where Chamchamal is also situated) and killed a farmer inside his home.
The Kurdistan National Congress (KNK) issued a written statement. The Anfal Campaign was the largest genocide against Kurds of the previous century, aimed at annihilating the Kurdish people, it said, adding that commemorations must be taken to a new phase by declaring 14 April as a National Day of Mourning.
The Anfal Massacre remains among the bloodiest and most devastating events in Kurdish contemporary history. “Those who made the Kurdish people go through this should be tried and punished,” Human rights activist Rezan Asker said.
Still, after 36 years, perpetrators accused in the massacres have not been brought to justice, even though Iraq has recognised the Anfal Campaign as a genocide against the Kurds.
The genocidal campaign ordered by Saddam Hussein was named after a chapter in the Qoran, the Surah al-Anfal, which means ‘treasure’ in Arabic.
