More victims of Saddam's purge found, Kurds seek justice
The recent discovery of additional mass graves of Iraqi Kurds is prompting renewed calls for collaborators with the former Iraqi regime to be prosecuted.
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq — As authorities find more mass graves of Iraqi Kurds believed to have been killed during Saddam Hussein's extermination campaign in the 1980s, one survivor is working to halt the victims' exhumation until more perpetrators are brought to justice.
Four mass graves have been discovered in recent weeks in the desert of Iraq's Muthanna province. The Kurdish region of Iraq is in the north, but many prisoners were taken to Muthanna, about 200 miles south of Baghdad.
Hussein's Baathist regime launched the infamous Anfal ("Spoils of War") operation against Kurds in 1986. By the time it ended in 1989, the number of victims had reached nearly 182,000, Kurdish officials estimate. Human Rights Watch considers the executions to be crimes against humanity.
As of Aug. 1, 130 bodies had been found at the site — and the number is rising, said Basim Jihad, spokesman for the Martyrs Foundation, a government body related to the Iraqi Council of Ministers. Most of the victims were Kurdish women and children, he told Al-Monitor.
