Martyrs Foundation reveals new details about a "large" mass grave of Faili Kurds

Shafaq News / Director General of the Department of Mass Graves Affairs and Protection at the Martyrs Foundation, Diaa Karim revealed on Tuesday new details about a mass grave for Faili Kurds announced earlier today.

The Martyrs Foundation announced on Tuesday, the discovery of sites of mass graves belonging to Faili Kurds and victims of Baath Party crimes, while it did not indicate the area where the graves were discovered.

Karim told Shafaq News that "the Department of Mass Graves Affairs and Protection headed to investigate some information that had previously been received about the existence of mass graves for Faili Kurds, and was directed to a specific area - he refused to name it - and we reached coordinates through aerial photographs to determine this cemetery. "

He stated that " a field visit will be made to the mass grave site during the next few days, to conduct a technical evaluation to include it in future plans to open it, but through the first look at the aerial photos, it was found that the land on which changes were made in it indicates that they are large graves, and may contain many victims. "

"We have not previously found mass graves belonging to the victims of Faili Kurd, and this may be one of the main places for Faili Kurd victims," ​​added the director general of the Department of Mass Graves Affairs.

He added, "Not revealing the area in which the mass grave was found due to several reasons, including security measures to prevent tampering with these areas, and we do not want to stir up feelings among the families of the victims, it may be negative by going to these areas, and for this we want to deal professionally with this issue, what we come up with, we will present it to the Iraqi people. "

The authorities in Saddam Hussein's regime stripped the Faili Kurds of Iraqi nationality, and worked to deport them to Iran under the pretext of subordination, before they carried out genocide and burying their youth in mass graves.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the former regime had expelled half a million people to Iran, according to statistics prepared by the United Nations until 1991.

The Faili Kurds in particular were subjected to systematic displacement since the founding of the modern Iraqi state, and then during the rule of former President Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr in 1970 and 1975, and by Saddam Hussein in 1980 with many arguments, under the pretext that they were originally from Iran before their nationality was abolished.