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Iraq’s Kurds press states to recognise genocide

Twenty-six years have passed since Saddam Hussein's campaign of mass killings against the Kurds in northern Iraq. Yet to date, no governments - except for Iraq's - have officially recognised the campaign as constituting a genocide. That allows them to avoid legal liability for supporting and arming Saddam during this time, writes Sofia Barbarani in Al Jazeera’s website.

Saddam systematically killed more than 100,000 Kurds in the ‘al-Anfal’ campaign, which lasted from February to September 1988, towards the end of the war with Iran - in which the Iraqi leader was supported by many Western countries. In March 1988, Saddam also ordered the chemical bombing of Halabja, where 5,000 Kurds were murdered.

Some of Iraq's largest military operations against the Kurds took place on April 14, 1988 - now the official day of remembrance for those killed in al-Anfal.

April is the commemorative month of several other genocides including the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, Armenian Genocide and the Cambodian genocide.

"For Western governments to recognise the systematic persecution of the Kurds as genocide… will help the Kurdish people achieve justice for the overwhelming suffering they experienced at the hands of Saddam Hussein," said Kurdish-British MP Nadhim Zahawi, who in 2012 launched an online petition that ultimately prompted the debate in the British parliament to recognise the al-Anfal campaign as genocide.

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