ERBIL — The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the Federal Government of Iraq will unearth two more mass graves in Iraq’s southern province of Musanna next month where Kurdish victims of Anfal Campaign are buried.

During three phases of an extermination campaign known as “Anfal” in 1980s, Saddam Hussein’s Baath regime killed and buried nearly 190,000 Kurdish men, women, and children in mass graves as part of his policy to crackdown on Kurdish freedom movement.

Last month, Kurdish and Iraqi authorities announced that they had retrieved the remains of 171 Kurdish victims of Anfal campaign in two mass graves in Samawa deserts, south of Iraq.

Two other mass graves in the area are discovered, and specialized teams will begin the exhumation process next month, said Sirwan Jalal, an official from KRG’s Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs.

He explained that the identity of the victims and areas of their origin in Kurdistan Region cannot be determined before the exhumation of the mass graves and forensic procedures.

Corpses discovered in the previously unearthed mass graves are now being examined in Baghdad to match the DNA of the victims with the family members who survived Anfal. They will be returned to Kurdistan later during a special ceremony for burial, Jalal added.

BasNews