Final Anfal: Attack on Bahdinan
There were eight stages to the 1988 Anfal campaign. The final stage was launched on 25 August 1988 and targeted Kurdistan’s Bahdinan region just south of the Turkish border. The Iraqi army used poison gas against the villages there as well as tanks and heavy artillery.
Iraqi planes fired six rockets containing poison gas and one landed 10 metres from me
Our children began to die of hunger. How could my twin babies survive without milk?
I was alone: I thought about giving myself up, but the Iraqis would have killed me
My two sisters, my mother and my grandfather died at Nizarka. No one buried them
The Iraqis declared an amnesty but it was a lie: 27 of my family were killed because they were Yazidis
That baby child lay for seven days on a cement floor
She tried to abandon her baby but couldn’t. I told her, “Leave him behind”
Our time is coming to an end, but we’ll take this sorrow to the grave
She said, "There's no one to help my brother and husband." I said, "I'll go"
The Iraqis said, "Return and you'll be amnestied." But they lied
Maybe we don’t show it sometimes, but there’s a fire burning inside us
Life and Death in Dibs Prison
Families were separated in Topzawa, and women and children were transferred to Dibs, near Kirkuk. The conditions in Dibs were harsh and many children died of typhoid.
‘Welcome to Hell’: the Desert Prison Nugra Salman
Nugra Salman was a notorious prison camp in the southern Iraqi deserts where Kurdish villagers were held under particularly brutal conditions. In these film clips, survivors share their stories of incarceration.
I didn't have a childhood: I was arrested at age 11 and imprisoned in Nugra Salman
Her poor starving daughter was so hungry she tried to eat dirt from the floor
They beat us with sticks and cables. I just hope you never have the same experience
There was a black dog who dug up and ate half the bodies buried at Nugra Salman
Exodus from the Kurdish Heartlands
In 1988 tens of thousands of Kurds fled Anfal towards Iran and Turkey. This was the first mass exodus of Kurds escaping massive chemical attacks. After the collapse of the Kurdish uprising in Iraq in 1991, an estimated 1.5 million people ran away from a vengeful Iraqi army.
It was so cold that your eyebrows and moustache froze solid
Remembering is important: don't forget what happened and what we've seen, despite the suffering
Seeing that old woman on the road, abandoned with the livestock, affected me emotionally
"Don't trust them," he said. "The government will take your heads, the jash will take your homes"
It was snowing so heavily our clothes froze like pieces of wood
Thirty five of us fled into the wilderness. For three nights we hid under apricot and mulberry trees
Despite the atrocities committed against the Kurds, there is hope for a new generation
