Remains of 29 Kurds found in mass graves in central Iraq

ERBIL, March 13 (AKnews) - The remains of 29 Kurds killed in a military campaign in the 1980s by the former Iraqi regime have been found in two mass graves in central Iraq, said the country's Ministry of Human Rights in a statement today.

The remains were discovered and exhumed in two mass graves in the Hamrin Mountain area in Salahaddin province, north of Baghdad.

There are four more mass graves in the same area waiting to be unearthed, according to the announcement.

“In the first mass grave nine remains were discovered, in the second 20... and the search process is ongoing,” the statement read.

The remains were identified as Kurds by their traditional Kurdish clothes.

Anfal, which literally means "spoils of war", refers to Saddam Hussein's genocide efforts to eradicate Kurds from Iraq in 1988. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were taken from northern Iraq to the central and southern parts of the country, where they were executed and buried in mass graves.

It is now believed that at least 350 were buried alive in these mass graves.