The history of genocide against Iraqi Kurds is documented in survivor testimony, government records and investigations of mass disappearance. Understanding Anfal also requires careful attention to dates, casualty estimates, recognition and families’ continuing search for relatives.

Rows of pale headstones bearing names in Kurdish script in a cemetery at Halabja, with trees and buildings behind
Cemetery at Halabja, photographed by Enno Lenze on 22 June 2014. This later photograph records a place of remembrance; it does not depict the 1988 attack or establish the identities of everyone buried there. [7] © Enno Lenze · Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0.

The events and their chronology

Iraq’s Ba’athist government carried out the eight-stage Anfal campaign from 23 February to 6 September 1988. Human Rights Watch places it within a wider history of village destruction, chemical attacks, detention and forced displacement during 1987–1989. [1] Keeping these periods distinct helps readers understand what an individual source is counting. Anfal targeted rural Kurdish communities through an organized state campaign; the existence of fighting between government forces and peshmerga does not explain away the documented treatment of civilians. [2]

Why investigators concluded genocide

Human Rights Watch’s 1993 investigation combined captured Iraqi government documents with interviews involving more than 350 witnesses, mostly survivors. It documented executions, disappearances, imprisonment, chemical warfare and the destruction of civilian settlements and infrastructure. The organization concluded that the regime committed genocide. [1] Its later explanation identifies intent to destroy the targeted group, in whole or in part, as essential to that finding. No particular numerical threshold of deaths defines genocide. [2] The evidence concerns the relationship between orders, institutions and what happened to people.

Halabja within the wider history

Iraqi forces attacked Halabja with chemical weapons on 16 March 1988, killing thousands of civilians. Human Rights Watch explains that the attack was connected to the wider campaign against the Kurds but was not formally one of the eight Anfal operations. It distinguishes the treatment of a city from the rural populations processed through Anfal’s detention system. [3] Halabja and Anfal are closely connected in public remembrance, while careful historical writing preserves their different operational histories.

How to read the casualty figures

Human Rights Watch’s 2007 account gives an estimate of at least 50,000 and possibly 100,000 people killed in Anfal. [2] In his statement of 14 April 2021, Nechirvan Barzani used a figure exceeding 182,000. [4] These figures belong to identified sources; they should not be combined into a single verified count. Questions about who was killed, who disappeared and which period a figure covers matter when comparing estimates. The incomplete accounting also explains the importance of preserving names and identifying remains.

Recognition has an institutional history

The UK House of Commons adopted a recognition motion on 28 February 2013. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s 2015 report records that vote alongside a different position taken by the UK government, which treated genocide determination primarily as a judicial matter. [5] These dated records identify who recognized the crimes and in what capacity. A parliamentary motion, a government position and a court’s finding have different institutional histories; reporting the actor and date makes the development of recognition easier to follow.

Families, identification and remembrance

The International Commission on Missing Persons describes cooperation with Iraqi institutions and the Kurdistan Region’s Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs. Its work includes developing missing-persons investigations and matching DNA from recovered remains with samples supplied by surviving relatives. It also records the importance of families learning the fate and whereabouts of those missing. [6] This work extends across Iraq’s conflicts, so a national missing-persons total is not an Anfal death toll. Alongside commemoration, identification gives families answers about individual lives.

Sources and further reading

  1. Human Rights Watch, Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign Against the Kurds, 1993: research overview and findings.
  2. Human Rights Watch, Q & A: The Anfal Trial, 22 June 2007: operational dates, estimate and elements of genocide.
  3. Human Rights Watch, Genocide in Iraq, chapter 3: Halabja and its distinction from the formal Anfal operations.
  4. Kurdistan Region Presidency, Nechirvan Barzani’s Anfal anniversary statement, 14 April 2021: attributed official casualty figure.
  5. UK Foreign Affairs Committee, UK Government policy on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 2015, paragraphs 75–78: recognition and government policy at that time.
  6. International Commission on Missing Persons, Iraq programme: institutional cooperation, family rights and forensic identification.
  7. Enno Lenze, Halabja Friedhof Grabsteine, 22 June 2014; Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.