Martyrs' Affairs Committee makes statement on mass graves of Kurds found in Samawa, Southern Iraq

Three new mass graves of Kurdish civilians who were the victims of genocide have been discovered in Samawa, Southern Iraq. The Kurdistan Parliament’s Committee on Martyrs Affairs, Genocide and Political Prisoners issued the following statement on the discovery and exhumation of the graves:

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful,  

Thirty-one years after the crimes were committed, specialized teams have discovered three mass graves dating back to the former Iraqi regime’s notorious Anfal campaign against the Kurdish people. We, the members of the Committee on Martyrs Affairs, Genocide and Political Prisoners of the Kurdistan Parliament, reaffirm that the discovery of these graves is further evidence of the brutality of the Ba’athist regime in Iraq, and that the world must take this crime into serious consideration.

We call on the Iraqi government to compensate the families of the victims of the Anfal campaign, in accordance with the decision of the Iraqi Federal Court, and to form a joint committee of the relevant Iraqi and Kurdistan Region authorities to search for the remains of Kurdish victims and return them to their families.

The Committee on Martyrs Affairs, Genocide and Political Prisoners