DIWANIYAH, Iraq, — Anti-Kurdish policies of the occupying powers of Kurdistan are coming to lights each day. A mass grave was discovered containing the remaining bodies of 222 Kurds who were massacred under Iraq’s former regime in 1987.
“We have found 222 bodies and we have transferred them to the morgue in the province of Najaf,” said Kerim Ziad, the official in charge of mass graves at the Department of Human Rights.
Iraqi authorities announced on Wednesday they had discovered another mass grave containing the remaining bodies of 900 Kurds in the Shanafiyah region near the city of Diwaniyah.
Ziad said several factors suggested that the victims, most with bullet wounds, were Kurds killed during the regime of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.
The mass graves are made up of six trenches, and we have worked on only three of them,” he said, suggesting the number of victims could be much higher.
Dakhil Saihoud, provincial head of the Justice and Accountability Commission which investigates issues relating to the former regime, said he was informed there were 17 trenches at the site. “It is possible there are hundreds of bodies in there,” he told AFP.
“The mass graves are crimes against humanity committed in 1987,” said Human Rights Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani. “This is one of 84 sites listed at our ministry, and we have completed work on 34 of them,” he said.
Widad Hatem, director of the Committee for Human Rights in Diwaniyah’s provincial council, said women and children were among the victims.
Maghoul Abdullah, an old man of more than 90, said he remembered people being rounded up in town. “The security forces of the old regime evacuated the area and forced us to leave the place. After a few days, large trucks took away people at night, and we even clearly heard their cries,” he said.
It should be pointed out that within the process of the systematic killing of the Kurds known as ‘Anfal’, the Iraqi former regime killed 182,000 civilian Kurds, and destroyed 3,000 Kurdish villages.