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Witness History

The Anfal genocide

Witness History

BBC

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, History

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 27 June 2019

⏱️ 10 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In June 2007, an Iraqi court ruled that a 1980s campaign by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds was genocide. More than 100,000 Kurds were killed in chemical attacks and mass executions, and their villages destroyed, during the five-month Anfal campaign. Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid, who was the architect of the campaign, was executed for his part in it in 2010.

Picture: Ali Hassan al-Majid in court during the Anfal trial in Baghdad, November 2006 (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.

0:04.7

My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.

0:08.5

As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.

0:18.0

What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,

0:24.6

poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.

0:29.7

If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC

0:35.4

Sounds.

0:36.4

Hello and welcome to the Witness History Podcast here on the BBC World Service

0:47.4

with me Louisa Daugalgo. In June 2007 an Iraqi court ruled that a 1980s campaign by Saddam Hussein against the Kurds

0:56.5

of Northern Iraq was genocide, and sentenced the man in charge Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan

1:02.3

al-Majid to death.

1:04.3

I've been talking to two people who investigated the Anfal, as the Iraqis named the campaign,

1:09.6

during which tens of thousands of Kurds disappeared, one of whom himself survived a chemical attack.

1:17.0

It was around 2 o'clock in the morning on 23rd of February 1988 when we

1:26.4

walk up from the sound of artillery.

1:30.4

Shosh Hadji belonged to one of the Kurdish groups fighting Saddam Hussein from the mountains of

1:35.2

northern Iraq when the Anfile campaign began.

1:38.3

We were used to these kinds of bombardment every night, but the shelling and the bombardment was very, very

1:45.0

different. It was very intensive. So when I came out I saw some of my friends and

1:50.3

some villages vomiting and they had red eyes and started having these red blisters and I said why they said

1:58.7

because it was a chemical bombardment as well as conventional one.

2:03.2

Five people died that night.

...

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