Bodies of 100 Barzani Genocide victims reburied in Erbil province
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The exhumed bodies of 100 victims of the 1983 Genocide of Barzanis were reburied in the Kurdistan Region's Erbil province on Sunday.
The burial was attended by high-profile officials, including the President of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) Masoud Barzani, Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani, and former Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi.
The exhumed bodies arrived in Barzan on Saturday night after being flown from their previous burial site in the southern Iraqi desert to Erbil International Airport.
Families and relatives of the victims dressed in black attended the official ceremony at the newly-inaugurated Barzani Genocide Monument built to commemorate the tragedy.
A number of women cried over the caskets wrapped in the flag of the Kurdistan Region.
"Neither do I know if any of these coffins contain any of my brothers, nephews, or cousins. But each of them is like a brother, cousin, or nephew to me," Masoud Barzani said, adding that it is a "big catastrophe and deep wound".
Barzani also hailed the resilience of the people of Barzan.
Participated in the burial of 100 Barzani martyrs as part of the 1983 Genocide by the former Iraqi regime which resulted in the murder of 8,000 innocent people. Their "crime" was that they were born Barzanis. I pray to His Almighty that their souls are in better places. pic.twitter.com/I88R2RCMYo
— Masoud Barzani (@masoud_barzani) July 31, 2022
He said that while nothing is more valuable than a piece of a martyr's bone, Baghdad still has a "moral and legal responsibility" to compensate the victims' families.
In a statement commemorating the 39th anniversary of the genocide on Sunday, Prime Minister Masrour Barzani called on the Iraqi government to compensate the victims' families and relatives as stipulated by the Iraqi constitution.
Hundreds of bodies belonging to the Barzanis massacred in 1983 were discovered and exhumed from the southern Iraqi desert after the Saddam Hussein regime was toppled in 2003. However, thousands more remain missing to the present day.