PYD recalls Anfal massacres, renews commitment to continued struggle

On the occasion of the 37th anniversary of the Anfal Massacre, the General Council of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) issued a statement to the public, describing the massacre as “one of the most heinous organized crimes of the modern era.”

The party called for justice for the victims and accountability for the perpetrators, while reaffirming its unwavering commitment to continue the struggle along the path of the martyrs until freedom and dignity are achieved for the Kurdish people.

The party's statement emphasized that the campaign carried out by the former Ba'athist Iraqi regime against the Kurdish population in the Kurdistan Region of southern Iraq was “systematic and aimed at extermination,” resulting in the death of over 200,000 civilians—most of them women, children, and the elderly—alongside the displacement of thousands and the burial of large numbers of victims in mass graves, many of which remain undiscovered to this day.

The statement further noted that the campaign was executed under a religious guise by naming it after the Qur’anic chapter “Al-Anfal,” in an attempt to justify the crime. However, the party asserted that this act reflected “a racist, denialist mindset that rejected the existence of the other—particularly the Kurdish people.”

Moreover, the PYD highlighted that the international community's silence at the time “effectively gave the green light for the continuation of crimes against the Kurds in other regions,” as evidenced by subsequent atrocities in Halabja, Shengal, and Kobani.

The Anfal campaign was a series of military operations and chemical attacks launched by Saddam Hussein's regime against Kurdish civilians in northern Iraq between 1986 and 1989, peaking in 1988. The campaign’s name, derived from a Qur’anic surah, provoked widespread controversy over the exploitation of religion to legitimize mass killings.

According to documentation by international human rights organizations, the campaign involved eight phases of military operations during which chemical weapons were used, most notably in the city of Halabja. The campaign led to the destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages and the burial of tens of thousands of victims in mass graves that were later discovered in remote areas of Iraq.

In 2010, the Iraqi High Criminal Court officially recognized the Anfal campaign as an act of genocide against the Kurdish people.

a.k

ANHA