President Barzani urges global recognition of Badinan Anfal as genocide

Shafaq News- Erbil

Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani on Tuesday renewed calls for international recognition of the 1988 Anfal campaign in Badinan, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, as genocide, and urged Baghdad to compensate its victims.

The Badinan Anfal, carried out from Aug. 25 to Sept. 6, 1988, was the final phase of the Iraqi Baathist government’s broader Anfal campaign against the Kurds. Barzani said the campaign targeted civilians as well as the environment of the Badinan area and involved the use of prohibited weapons.

Anfal was a series of military campaigns conducted by Saddam Hussein’s government against Kurdish areas in 1988, involving mass killings, disappearances, forced displacement and the destruction of villages. Human Rights Watch has described the campaign as genocide.

Read more: Kurdistan remains a haven 40 years after the Anfal genocide

Barzani noted that the Iraqi High Tribunal, the court established after Saddam Hussein’s removal to prosecute senior members of the former government for major crimes, ruled that the Anfal campaign constituted genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He said efforts would continue to secure broader international recognition of the campaign as genocide.

Barzani said the atrocities should serve as a lesson against future abuses and called for the constitutional rights of the Kurdistan Region’s people to be protected.