Kurdistan Region Prime Minister Masrour Barzani delivered a powerful speech at Yale University on Wednesday, urging international accountability for the atrocities committed against the Kurdish people during the Anfal genocide and other systematic campaigns of violence.

Speaking at the "History and Legacy of the Kurdish Genocide" conference, organized by Yale’s Genocide Studies Program, Barzani—represented by an official—highlighted the decades of oppression, mass killings, and chemical attacks that defined one of the darkest periods in Kurdish history.

Barzani emphasized that the Kurdish genocide was not a single event but a prolonged campaign of violence by Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime. From the 1970s to 1991, over 4,500 Kurdish villages were destroyed, and the 1988 Anfal campaign alone claimed 182,000 lives, with countless others displaced or executed.

He recounted the horrors of chemical attacks on Halabja in 1988, where 5,000 civilians were killed in a single day, and the mass disappearances of 8,000 Barzani men and boys in 1983—many of whose remains were later found in mass graves. The Feyli Kurds were also targeted, stripped of citizenship, and executed en masse in the 1970s.

“Justice must come alongside remembrance,” Barzani declared, criticizing the international community for its historical indifference. He noted that despite UN and U.S. recognition of ISIS’s crimes against Yezidis and Christians as genocide, justice remains elusive.

“Iraq became the theatre for another genocide in 2014,” he said, referencing ISIS’s slaughter of thousands. “Why has Iraq seen genocide repeated so many times?”

Barzani called for:

• Exhuming and identifying mass graves from both the Anfal and ISIS eras.
• Compensation for survivors and families of victims.
• Global action to hold perpetrators accountable, including those who enabled past regimes.

Despite the trauma, Barzani highlighted the Kurdistan Region’s transformation into a haven for persecuted communities, including Yezidis and Christians. He thanked the U.S. and academic institutions like Yale for amplifying Kurdish voices but stressed that words must translate into action.

“To the scholars and students here: your work gives meaning to ‘never again,’” he said. “You are shaping the conscience of future generations.”

Barzani welcomed Iraq’s recent recognition of Halabja as a governorate but stressed that much more must be done. He urged the international community to confront impunity and ensure reparations for survivors.

“Silence is complicity,” he concluded. “We honor the fallen not just in words, but in deeds.”

The conference served as a stark reminder of the Kurdish people’s suffering—and a rallying cry for justice long denied.