Shafaq News- Erbil

Decades of genocide, forced displacement, and systematic repression under Iraq’s former regime inflicted losses exceeding $384 billion on the Kurdistan Region, the Kurdish government warned, accusing Baghdad of “failing” to compensate victims.

In a statement on Monday, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) stressed that constitutional provisions require Baghdad to compensate victims of the former regime, noting that more than 23 years after its fall, no material or moral reparations have been delivered. It detailed damages of more than $306 billion tied to human losses, $33 billion in material destruction, $10 billion in environmental harm, $30 billion from deliberate neglect, and $5 billion in reconstruction needs.

KRG traced a decades-long pattern of abuses beginning in 1970, when authorities deported about 300,000 Feyli Kurds to Iran, forcibly disappeared roughly 9,000 young men, and seized community property, while citing the 1983 Barzani massacre, in which around 8,000 men and youths were killed in southern Iraqi deserts.

Chemical attacks in 1987 hit Balisan and Sheikh Wasan, killing 134 civilians and leading to the detention and burial of 82 wounded survivors, it added, noting that these crimes escalated during the 1988 Anfal campaign, which saw 182,000 people disappear and 4,500 villages destroyed, culminating in the Halabja chemical attack on March 16 that killed about 5,000 people and injured an estimated 10,000.

Reaffirming its pursuit of legal and diplomatic channels to secure these rights, the Kurdish government called on Baghdad and the international community to meet their legal and moral responsibilities.