Top Kurdistan officials mark 35th anniversary of Zewa refugee camp bombardment

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Senior Kurdistan Region officials released statements on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of the Zewa refugee camp bombardment by the Ba’ath regime’s warplanes in Iranian Kurdistan, resulting in significant numbers of casualties.

“Anyone who could hear the screams of the injured and see the chopped and burnt bodies would realize the atrocity of the then Iraqi government and oppressed Kurds,” Masoud Barzani, the former president of the Kurdistan Region and the current leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said in a statement on the 35th anniversary of the bombardment.

“The Zewa catastrophe is one of the dark pages of the Iraqi state and will never be forgotten,” he added.

“Resistance and courage of the Zewa refugees, Mother Ameena, and hundreds of other examples of the Kurdish nation,” Masoud Barzani continued, “was a clear message to everyone that no matter how cruel and well-armed the enemy is it cannot resist the will of the Kurdish nation’s freedom seekers.”

“We remember and honor the victims of [the] June 9, 1985, attack against civilians in the Zewa refugee camp,” Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani wrote in a tweet on Tuesday.

“Dozens of children, women, and men were perished in the barbaric attack carried out by the former Ba’ath regime,” the Kurdish president added.

We remember and honor the victims of June 9, 1985 attack against civilians in the Zewa refugee camp. Dozens of children, women and men were perished in the barbaric attack carried out by the former Baath regime.

— Nechirvan Barzani (@IKRPresident) June 9, 2020

On June 9, 1985, the former Ba’ath regime bombarded the Zewa refugee camps in Iran’s Urmiah province, where it housed Kurdish refugees who fled northern Iraq to Iran following the demise of the September Revolution in 1975.

The attack also targeted a significant number of innocent women and children inside the camp, estimated to be over 150 deaths and more than 600 wounded.  

Editing by Karzan Sulaivany