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Iraq Unearths Mass Graves Believed to Contain Kurds Slain in 1987-88

Rikar Hussein

   GARMYAN/WASHINGTON - Four mass graves with dozens of bodies believed to
   be Kurds killed by the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's forces were
   found in the desert of al-Muthanna province in southern Iraq.

   Early exhumation of the mass graves about 80 kilometers southwest of
   al-Samawah city has found bodies of 70 people, said Jabar Omar, the
   chief of Kurdistan Region's Office of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs in
   Garmyan, who also oversees the unearthing process.

   The people, consisting mostly of women and children, are believed to
   have been killed between 1987-1988, during the Iraqi former regime's
   "Anfal campaign" against the Kurds.

   "The victims are buried on the top of each other and they are mostly
   women and children," Omar said. "Separating the bodies is difficult
   because many of them are infants, between 1 and 2 years of age, buried
   between their mothers' arms."

   Anfal campaign

   The Anfal campaign was unleashed against the Kurds in the late 1980s by
   Hussein's forces and led by his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid. The
   campaign reportedly left 180,000 Kurds dead or missing, and about 4,500
   villages were destroyed.

   Kurdish officials say the whereabouts of thousands who went missing in
   the campaign remain unclear, with their families still trying to find
   out if they are alive or buried in Iraq's southern deserts.

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