Remains of 153 Anfal Victims Returned for Temporary Burial in Kurdistan Region

Iraqi Ministry of Health

Authorities preparing to handover the remains of 153 Anfal victims to the Kurdistan Region.

The Directorate of Mass Graves and Missing Persons Affairs at Iraq's Martyrs Foundation received the remains of 153 victims of the Anfal campaign on Saturday morning, with preparations under way to transfer them to the Kurdistan Region for temporary burial pending their identification.

In a statement received by PUKMEDIA, the Directorate said the remains belong entirely to women and children who were victims of the Anfal operations. 

They were exhumed from a mass grave in the Samawah desert by the Department's search and excavation teams, working alongside specialists from the Ministry of Health's Department of Forensic Medicine, according to the statement.

The Directorate said the handover was carried out in coordination with Parwin Nouri, Adviser to the Iraqi President on Missing Persons and Mass Graves Affairs, as well as through cooperation between national institutions responsible for missing persons and mass graves.

It added that the transfer and temporary burial of the remains form part of established procedures while scientific examinations and DNA analyses are completed to identify the victims before their remains are returned to their families for final burial.

The Directorate reaffirmed its commitment to continuing the search for and excavation of mass graves, uncovering the fate of those still missing, and preserving the dignity of the victims by ensuring their families have the right to learn the fate of their loved ones, recover their remains and lay them to rest with dignity.

The Anfal campaign, carried out by Saddam Hussein's former Ba'ath regime against Kurdish civilians, began on 22 February 1988 and continued until 6 September of the same year. It is widely recognised as one of the most devastating episodes of state-sponsored mass killing under Ba'athist rule in Iraq.

The campaign unfolded in eight military phases, involving the direct participation of multiple branches of the Iraqi armed forces, including army corps based in Kirkuk and Erbil, the air force, special forces, the Republican Guard, intelligence agencies, and units responsible for chemical and biological weapons, alongside other state institutions mobilised to carry out the operations.

More than 182,000 innocent Kurds, including women, children and the elderly, were killed during the notorious campaign, which remains one of the darkest chapters in the history of the Kurdish people.

Anfal victims were executed and buried in remote desert areas across southern and western Iraq, including Samawah, while Mahawil in Babil Province and Nugrat al-Salman in the western desert were among the principal mass burial sites.



PUKMEDIA