Remains of Seven Anfal Victims Unearthed in Duhok’s Amedi District
The victims, all men from Mergati villa, were executed by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime during the 1988 Anfal campaign and buried in a mass grave. Their traditional Kurdish clothing was still intact, helping locals identify them.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) — The remains of seven victims of the Anfal campaign were exhumed in the village of Mergati in Amedi district, with plans to construct a monument in their honor, according to the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs.
The victims, all men from Mergati, were executed by Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath regime during the 1988 Anfal campaign and buried in a mass grave. Their traditional Kurdish clothing was still intact, helping locals identify them. The recovery was carried out at the request of the victims’ families.
Aram Nouri, Director of Mass Graves at the Ministry, told Kurdistan24 that the process includes two phases. “The first phase is to recover the remains and transfer them to the Duhok Forensic Medicine Department for DNA sampling,” he said. “Later, they will be reburied in their hometown with proper honors.”
He also confirmed that a monument will be erected in the village to commemorate the Anfal campaign and preserve the memory of its victims from the area.
The victims' Kurdish garments and physical features enabled locals to recognize them, Nouri noted. He emphasized the regional government's ongoing coordination with Baghdad to locate and repatriate the remains of all Kurdish victims of the Anfal genocide in the Iraqi southern provinces.
Previously, Minister of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs, Abdullah Haji Mahmoud, had stated that the damages and losses from the genocide have been documented and officially submitted to the Iraqi government. According to ministry figures, more than 215,000 Kurds were killed during the campaign.
