Mass grave of Kurdish women and children from the time of Saddam Hussein found in Iraq
Kyiv • UNN
In southern Iraq, the remains of hundreds of Kurdish women and children were exhumed from a mass grave. The victims were probably executed by Saddam Hussein's regime in the 1980s.
Experts believe that the grave discovered near the village of Tal al-Shaikhiya in the province of Muthanna is related to repressions under the regime of Saddam Hussein.
Writes UNN with reference to AFP.
Iraqi authorities have exhumed the remains of hundreds of Kurdish women and children from a mass grave in southern Iraq, allegedly victims of the former regime of dictator Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. This was reported on Thursday by officials.
After the first layer of earth was removed and the remains became clearly visible, we discovered that they belonged to women and children dressed in Kurdish clothing
According to his estimates, the victims were probably from Qalar, in the province of Sulaymaniyah, in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan, in the north.
The details make the discovery especially tragic:
“Some of the remains are connected to each other. We can see how mothers were holding their babies at the moment of death,” explained Ahmed Kusai, the head of the excavations.
“Many of them were executed with bullets fired at point blank range into their heads,” says Diaa Karim.
HelpHelp
Saddam Hussein's rule was overthrown in 2003 after the US invasion of Iraq. After the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, then US President George W. Bush included Iraq, Iran and North Korea in what he called an “axis of evil.” And two years later, in March 2003, due to suspicions of Saddam Hussein's stockpiling of chemical weapons and his unwillingness to cooperate with UN inspectors, the United States, led by a coalition that also included the United Kingdom, Australia, Spain, and Poland, declared war on Iraq.
Saddam Hussein was hanged before he could be tried for “genocide” for the deaths of some 180,000 Kurds during his regime's violent campaign known as “Anfal” in 1987 and 1988 against the Kurds.
Recall
The United States and Iraq have agreed on a plan for the withdrawal of international coalition forces. It is planned to withdraw hundreds of troops by September 2025, and the rest by the end of 2026, with the possibility of some units remaining.
