Garmiyan villager spends $3,000 on monument for Anfal victims

GARMIYAN, Kurdistan Region — A villager in Garmiyan's Kifri district has spent $3,000 building a monument to remember local victims of the Anfal campaign. 

Farhan Sleman is from Qala Charmala, where 126 people were killed. 

"No one has thought of building a monument at the entrance to the villages. Neither my uncle Saeed nor his family survived. My uncle Mohammed is the same. All our relatives were victims," he told Rudaw.

"The goal of building the monument is to remember the names of those who died. We have visited a lot of villages but haven’t seen any symbol of Anfal."

The Anfal -  the eighth chapter in the Quran -  was the codename used by Baathists for the slaughter of Kurds, which began in 1986. Wednesday marks 33 years since the conclusion of the genocide.

Laali Hassan is a survivor. She was imprisoned for seven months. 

"My father, my uncle, three of my aunts, dozens of my cousins and the entire village were victims of Anfal. All of our relatives are victims. There are some victims whose houses have not been rebuilt because none of their family members are left."

More than 182,000 people fell victim to the genocide and more than 4,500 villages were destroyed, according to a Kurdistan Parliament report obtained by Rudaw English. 

Upwards of 5,000 villages were destroyed in the Garmiyan area. 
 
"I saw 15 children die in one day. Children died crying for sweets," said Laali.

  

Translation and video editing by Sarkawt Mohammed