Press Release
February 11, 2002
*A New Mass grave Found in Iraq Kurdistan

On February 8, 2002, a mass grave was discovered inside an old Iraqi military Camp in Sardaw in the outskirts of Sulaimanya province in Iraqi Kurdistan. Some workers inside this abandoned military camp found all the victims in the same mass grave.

According to the first forensic investigations the mass grave contained bodies of six Kurds wearing traditional Kurdish costume, four of them are thought to be teenagers and the other two are over twenty years old [I think this is inaccurate. one is 18 and the others are in their early 20s]. Traces of blood on their clothes and bullets on the heads of some of them were visible. 

This mass grave is the fourth to be discovered since 1991 in Sardaw military
camp which was built in 1982. According to the Kurdish authorities, the
massacre was perpetrated in 1983. It is believed that they were executed by 
firing squads.  The local people are expecting to find more mass graves in 
this camp. The investigations are ongoing.

Since the end of the Gulf War, the Kurds have found dozens of mass graves in
the area under their control in Sulaimaniya, Arbil, Duhok and Kirkuk
provinces. The mass graves of Koreme, Goptapa, Baharka, Shaqlawa and the 
Asphalt factory of Arbil are just few examples of the Iraqi regime's 
atrocities.  Many of the bodies were victims of the Iraqi governments use of 
chemical weapon.

The Iraqi government has a world record in the area of forcible 
disappearances.  The Iraqi regime is responsible for the disappearances of 
more than 200,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaigns in 1988 mostly in Germiyan,
Kirkuk province; the deportation of Feyli Kurds in 1980 from Baghdad and its
surroundings; the disappearance of over 7,000 Barzanis in 1983 during the
attack on Qushtapa camp in Arbil and many other Iraqis from the Southern and
Central part of Iraq.

The Iraqi Government is also responsible for the disappearances of foreign
nationals.  More than 600 Kuwaitis and scores of Lebanese, Bahrainis, and Saudis are missing.  

The families of these disappeared people are suffering from 
socio-economic, psychological, health and legal problems as a result of the
missing of their beloved ones.

The Iraqi regime refuses to tell the families of the victims about their fate or issue them with death certificates of the missing ones. Tens of Thousands of women, children and relatives are living the agony of this tragedy on a daily basis. Each time a new mass grave is discovered, thousands of people go to the site of the grave to find out if any of their relatives are amongst them. 

In our interviews with the families of the disappeared they believe that in post Saddam era hundreds of mass graves will be found.

The discovery of this new mass grave is additional evidence of Saddam Hussein and his regime's crimes of genocide and crimes against humanity. The 
Kurds ceased 14 tons of Iraqi documents in 1991 during their uprising.  The 
documents are detailing the Iraqi regimes genocidal campaigns during the Anfal operations. The genocide of the Kurds is world's most documented case since the second World War. 

While the International Alliance for Justice/the Coalition for Justice in
Iraq strongly condemns this atrocity committed by the Iraqi regime, we call
upon Andreas Mavrommatis, the UN Special Rapporteur on human Rights in Iraq,
who will be visiting Iraq in coming days to visit the site of this mass grave and to bring up the fate of the disappeared people in Iraq with theIraqi government.

We also call upon Mr Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the UN to establish an expert commission to investigate the Iraqi governments acts of
genocide, crimes against humanity and crimes of war, as it was done for
Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
_______________

Contact: Bakhtiar Amin & Francoise Brie
The International Alliance for Justice (IAJ) - The Coalition For Justice in 
Iraq (CJI)
2, Passage de la Fonderie
75019 Paris, France 

Tel: +33.1.43.57.13.10
Fax: +33.1.43.57.14.35
E-mail: aij@noos.fr 

The Coalition for Justice in Iraq (CJI) is composed of 275 international 
NGO's from more than 120 countries calling for the establishment of an 
International Ad Hoc Tribunal for the Iraqi leadership's crimes against 
humanity, crimes of war and genocide.