1980’s

A Brief Overview…

In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, leading to the 8 yearlong Iraq-Iran war. Kurdish parties joined collaborating against Saddam Hussain and gaining military support by the Islamic Republic of Iran. By 1986 the Iraqi leadership in an effort to punish the Kurds turned their focus on the Kurdish region, and began a 5 year long genocidal campaign, known as  Anfal, with an estimated 50,000–200,000 civilian casualties, hundreds of villages and cities destroyed. The Halabja poison gas attack, that killed 5000 civilians within minutes and is up to date the largest chemical attack on a people in human history, was part of the genocide campaign. By 1988, Saddam and his forces had managed get rid of the Kurdish male population between the ages of 15 and 50, as they either were killed or were forced to flee the country. The Kurdish resistance had fled to Iran and was no longer a threat to Iraq, while Iran accepted a UN resolution to stop the war, with no actual winner and only heavy human costs on all sides. Iraq in the meantime announced an amnesty to release detained women, children, and elderly. During the Anfal campaign many Kurdish girls and women were sold as sex slaves across the Middle East and up until today mass graves are discovered all over Iraq, with children, women and men often having been buried alive.