anfal campaign
Tags: iraq
Gas attacks under Baath that killed over 200,000 Kurds
- Has a ministry of martyrs and anfal in Erbil
- Also interesting that the word “anfal” has been transformed into a general meaning for “genocide”
Prelude
- 8 campaigns in all
- Sheikh Wasan and Balisan attacks are significant because they are the first fully documented account of chemical attacks on civilians by the Iraqi regime
Balisan bombings
- meticulous looting and bombings of villages, cleared out with dynamite and bulldozers
- No standard procedure for the collection of corpses
- either delivered to hospitals in Erbil, or ambulances would be summoned to collect the bodies from Einkawa
- one of the first rounds of chemical bombings that occured
- total: 225-400, death counts:
- 24 immediate deaths in balisan
- 103 deaths in Sheikh Wasan
- 8-9 in Raniya hospital
- 4 DOA on Erbil Emergency Hospital
- 64-142 deaths in the Amn detention center
- 2 busloads of men and boys disappeared, anywhere between 70-76
- “many children” on barren plain near Khalifan
Spring 1987 Campaign
- Destruction of >703 kuridsh villages
- Main difference from anfal afterwards:
- 1987 campaign had forced relocations, such as Narin being relocated to nahya in the southern part of Germian
- Zerdow was warned before the village itself was cleared
- Also paid compensation from the state, villagers were not physically harmed, token compensation was paid if family accepted relocation
June 8th 1987 Declaration
- First application of shoot-to-kill order with zero subsequent authorization signed by al-Majid
1987 Census
- Designed to be carried out every decade, and was used by saddam to keep track of which families aligned themselves with the government
Abstract
Title: “The Memory of Anfal: How is Anfal Remembered Today?”
The Anfal genocide killed an unspeakable amount Kurds and left lasting marks on society. Comprised of eight separate campaigns, the legacy of Anfal goes beyond Kurdistan and requires us to situtate it within a larger context of genocide. I will speak about my research on the memory of Anfal, involving a survey of existing literature on post-traumatic stress on children as well as contemporary research on how Anfal is taught and remembered in schools within Kurdistan today.