ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The Kurdistan Region’s leaders on Monday commemorated the 37th anniversary of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds, reiterating calls for Baghdad to compensate the victims.
The Anfal campaign, named after the eighth surah in the Quran, was the codename for Hussein’s genocide that killed around 182,000 Kurds.
President Nechirvan Barzani described the Anfal ”as one of the most heinous acts of genocide in history, leaving lasting scars on the collective memory and conscience of our people,” according to a Kurdistan Region Presidency statement.
”We reaffirm that the Iraqi Federal Government bears both a legal and moral responsibility to provide compensation to the families of the victims of Anfal in all aspects. It is imperative that the government enforces the ruling of the Iraqi Supreme Criminal Court, which recognized Anfal as genocide and a crime against humanity,” President Barzani stressed.
He added that Erbil continued to seek “full international recognition of the Anfal campaign as genocide.”
Prime Minister Masrour Barzani emphasized that the effects of the Anfal genocide persist and urged Baghdad to fulfill its obligation to compensate the victims.
“The federal government must, with a sense of legal, constitutional, and moral duty and responsibility, compensate the relatives, families, and all those affected by the Anfal genocide and all other victims of the Baath regime, both materially and morally,” the Kurdistan Region’s premier said.
Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) leader Masoud Barzani also called for the compensation of victims in his statement, while remembering the crimes carried out by Hussein’s regime against the Kurds
“The criminals ended up with the dustbin of history, but the wounds and tragedies of genocide and injustice are still sunken and have not yet been depleted. The Iraqi state must perform its duty to compensate for the crime of the Anfal and the genocide that was committed against our people,” he said.
Iraqi leader also recalled the genocide, with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani saying the events “exposed the regime’s ugliness and racist nature toward our people and national forces.”
“Tyranny has been consigned to the darkness of history, while Iraqis continue—together—the journey of reconstruction and development, upholding the dignity of a united, secure, and stable Iraq,” Sudani stated on X.
The Iraqi parliament recognized Anfal as genocide on April 14, 2008. The military commanders who carried out the campaign were handed death sentences. Ali Hassan Majeed, known as “Chemical Ali,” was hanged in 2011.
Yet 35 years after the massacre, Anfal survivors say they still have not received compensation from Iraq.
The Garmiyan phase of the Anfal campaign began on April 14, 1988, in the southernmost reaches of the Kurdistan Region, and that date is used to commemorate the anniversary of Anfal every year.