Shafaq News- Baghdad

Iraq on Saturday transferred the remains of 153 victims of the Anfal campaign to the Kurdistan Region for reburial in Al-Sulaymaniyah, Ali Shukri, head of the Iraqi Presidency’s advisers and experts body, said.

Speaking at a press conference, Shukri said the remains were recovered from mass graves in the Tal Sheikh area of the Samawah desert. Authorities are preparing to open seven more mass graves in the same area in the coming days.

The Anfal campaign was carried out by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist government against Kurdish communities in 1988 and was later recognized as genocide in proceedings before the Iraqi High Tribunal. Human Rights Watch has estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurdish civilians were killed during the campaign. Many victims were transported to remote areas of southern Iraq and buried in mass graves, where Iraqi and Kurdish authorities have continued exhumation and identification work decades later.

Read more: Erbil exhibition traces Kurdistan from Anfal to rebuilding