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Kirkuk,
Kurdistan-Iraq, April 6, 2006, -- Eight mass graves
containing about 1,000 bodies were discovered in the
Kurdish oil-rich city of Kirkuk in Kurdistan
(northern Iraq) , The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan
party said.
The graves were found yesterday in the villages of
al-Asri and Tubazawa, west of Kirkuk, the Patriotic
Union of Kurdistan said on its Arabic-language Web
site today. Two of the sites contained at total of
at least 800 bodies, the party said.
It says most of the victims were Kurds as well as
some Christians and some Shiites killed during the
1991 repression of an uprising by Saddam Hussein.
Ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein initiated a wave
of violence from 1987 to 1988, called the Anfal
campaign, to punish the Kurdish minority for siding
with Iran in the Iran-Iraq war.
The court trying Saddam over the killing of Shiites
in the 1980s announced yesterday he would face
genocide charges over the Anfal campaign against
Kurds that left about 180,000 people dead.
An estimated 500,000 people were killed by the Iraqi
regime in Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) in Sulaimaniyah,
Erbil, and Duhok provinces, which have been under
Kurdish control since the end of the 1991 Gulf War,
according to Iraq's Human Rights Ministry.
There are at least 290 mass graves across Iraq and
about 50 percent of Iraq's population is missing at
least one family member, the ministry has said.
AFP
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