Top Kurdistan Region officials call on Baghdad to compensate Anfal victims

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On Tuesday, top Kurdistan Region officials called on the Iraqi government to compensate victims of the murderous Anfal campaign committed against ethnic Kurds in the 1980s under Saddam Hussein. 

The remarks came as the autonomous region marked the 32nd anniversary of the final phase of the military operations now widely recognized as an act of genocide.

Masoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), said in a statement, “The Anfal campaign was the extension of the series of crimes and atrocities that the former regime of Iraq committed to suppress and eradicate the Kurdish nation.”

“The biggest issue of the former government and enemies of Kurdistan was the existence of a nation that owns history, geography, and characteristics of a nation,” that he explained was the aim of the Anfal's architects to utterly obliterate.

“But the resilience of the people of Kurdistan foiled that inhuman plot,” Barzani added as he called on the state of Iraq to “compensate all the atrocities and catastrophe” that the Kurdish people suffered.

Earlier in the day, Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said, “It is a legal and constitutional right of the families of the victims of the Anfal campaign to be compensated in accordance with the verdict of the Iraqi High Tribunal.” 

Read More: Read More: Kurdistan PM marks 32nd anniversary of Anfal's final phase

At the end of Iraq’s eight-year-long war with Iran in the 1980s, the government of Saddam Hussien launched a series of comprehensive ethnic cleansing operations. 

It was a multi-phase political, military, economic, cultural, and social process of annihilation that resulted in the deaths of as many as 182,000 Kurds and the eradication of some 5,000 villages. 

In his own statement on Sunday, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani reiterated his call that the Iraqi government “offer full compensation to Anfal victims and their surviving relatives,” as part of Iraq’s legal obligations in accordance with the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal.

“Remembering the Anfal should encourage us to further strengthen peace and unity among all communities in Kurdistan,” President Barzani wrote, as such “horrifying atrocities must lead us all towards tolerance and peaceful coexistence.”

Editing by John J. Catherine