ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The remains of dozens of Barzan genocide victims have been recovered and will return home by the end of this month, an official told Rudaw on Monday.
The remains of 100 Barzanis were recovered from Iraq’s southern deserts and will be returned to the Kurdistan Region to lay to rest on July 30, Adel Mala Saleh, spokesperson for the Region’s Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs said.
On July 31, 1983, an estimated 8,000 members of the Barzani tribe were rounded up, abducted from their homes in the Zagros Mountains, and taken to the deserts of southern Iraq where they were killed on the orders of the Baath regime.
The remains of 596 Barzanis have been found in mass graves in southern Iraq. They were returned home, to the Barzan area where they have been laid to rest in unmarked graves, without being identified through DNA testing. Thousands of others are still missing.
The atrocity was an act of collective punishment of the Barzanis, whose leaders were active in Kurdish revolts against the Iraqi regime. Men and boys were the primary targets, but women, children, and the elderly were all victims. Thirty-nine years later, the wounds are still fresh for the survivors and family members.
A new monument to honor the dead and missing have been built in Barzan. The tear-drop shaped monument represents the tears shed by the mothers who weep for their sons. Construction began in 2012 and it was opened to the public last year in July.
The crimes against the Barzan tribe were part of the Baathist regime’s genocidal Anfal campaign to exterminate the Kurds. Anfal - the eighth chapter, or Surah, in the Quran - was the codename used by Baathists for the slaughter. More than 182,000 people were killed and over 4,500 villages were destroyed in eight phases of the Anfal campaign in the 1980s that culminated with the chemical weapon attack on Halabja.
The Iraqi Supreme Court has recognized the Anfal campaign as constituting genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. However, the international community is largely yet to do so.
