The destruction of Kurdish villages during the Iraqi Arabization campaign refers to villages razed by the Ba'athist Iraqi government during its " Arabization campaign" of areas, excluded from

Kurdistan Kurdistan ( ku, کوردستان ,Kurdistan ; lit. "land of the Kurds") or Greater Kurdistan is a roughly defined geo-cultural territory in Western Asia wherein the Kurds form a prominent majority population and the Kurdish culture, languages ...

under the Iraqi–Kurdish Autonomy Agreement of 1970.

History

Some 4,000 villages were destroyed from 1975 until the end of the Al-Anfal Campaign in late 1980s.Black, George
''Genocide in Iraq: The Anfal Campaign against the Kurds''
Human Rights Watch, 1993. pg. xii, 20. During the mid-1970s, hundreds of Kurdish villages were destroyed in the northern governorates of

Ninawa Nineveh (; akk, ; Biblical Hebrew: '; ar, نَيْنَوَىٰ '; syr, ܢܝܼܢܘܹܐ, Nīnwē) was an ancient Assyrian city of Upper Mesopotamia, located in the modern-day city of Mosul in northern Iraq. It is located on the eastern ba ...

and Duhok (Shorsh Resool estimate: 369), and around 150 in Diyala (Shorsh Resool estimate: 154). In 1977–78, in response to the

1975 Algiers Agreement The 1975 Algiers Agreement (commonly known as the Algiers Accord, sometimes as the Algiers Declaration) was an agreement between Iran and Iraq to settle any disputes and conflicts concerning their common border (such as the Shatt al-Arab, known ...

, Iraq began clearing swaths of land along its northern border with Iran. During the first waves of clearances, residents were given five days to leave their homes and as many as 500 villages were then destroyed, mostly in the

As Sulaymaniyah Governorate ar, محافظة السليمانية , other_name = , settlement_type = Governorate , image_skyline = , imagesize = , image_caption = Clockwise, from ...

. In the spring of 1987,

Ali Hassan al-Majid Ali Hassan Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti ( ar, علي حسن عبد المجيد التكريت, ʿAlī Ḥasan ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Tikrītī; 30 November 1941 – 25 January 2010), nicknamed Chemical Ali ( ar, علي الكيمياوي, ʿAlī al-Kīm ...

instructed that "no house was to be left standing" in the Kurdish villages of the Erbil plain. Only Arab villages would be spared. On October 17, 1987 a population census was conducted, in which respondents could only choose "Arab" or "Kurdish" as their nationality; anyone who refused to identify as "Arab" (including minorities such as Assyrians,

Chaldean Christians Chaldean Catholics () ( syr, ܟܲܠܕܵܝܹ̈ܐ ܩܲܬܘܿܠܝܼܩܵܝܹ̈ܐ), also known as Chaldeans (, ''Kaldāyē''), Chaldo-Assyrians or Assyro-Chaldeans, are modern Assyrian adherents of the Chaldean Catholic Church, which originates fr ...

Turkmens Turkmens ( tk, , , , ; historically "the Turkmen"), sometimes referred to as Turkmen Turks ( tk, , ), are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia, living mainly in Turkmenistan, northern and northeastern regions of Iran and north-weste ...

and

Yazidis Yazidis or Yezidis (; ku, ئێزیدی, translit=Êzidî) are a Kurmanji-speaking endogamous minority group who are indigenous to Kurdistan, a geographical region in Western Asia that includes parts of Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Iran. The ma ...

) was labeled "Kurdish" regardless of ethnicity, and when the Al-Anfal Campaign was officially launched several months later, all non-Arabs were targeted. The total of Kurdish villages that were destroyed during the 1987–1989 Al-Anfal Campaign is estimated to be 2,000.Black, George. (1993). pg. 4.

Major population damaging events

* 1970s

Ba'athist Arabization campaigns in North Iraq The Ba'athist Arabization campaigns in northern Iraq involved Arabization and ethnic cleansing of minorities (primarily Kurds, as well as Turkmen, Yazidis, Assyrians, and Shabaks), in line with settler colonialist policies, to shift the demo ...

* 1980s Feyli Kurdish genocide * 1986-1989

Anfal genocide The Anfal campaign; ku, شاڵاوی ئەنفال or the Kurdish genocide was a counterinsurgency operation which was carried out by Ba'athist Iraq from February to September 1988, at the end of the Iran–Iraq War. The campaign targeted ru ...

Halabja chemical attack The Halabja massacre ( ku, Kêmyabarana Helebce کیمیابارانی ھەڵەبجە), also known as the Halabja chemical attack, was a massacre of Kurdish people that took place on 16 March 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War ...

* 1991 Kurdish refugee crisis

Resettlement

In late 1991, the international community launched a large-scale project to reconstruct housing in 1,500 of the 4,000 destroyed villages of northern Iraq.Roberta Cohen, Francis Mading Deng
''Masses in Flight: The Global Crisis of Internal Displacement''
Brookings Institution Press, 1998, pg. 63.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kurdish Villages Destroyed During The Iraqi Arabization Campaign Arabization Persecution of Kurds in Iraq Former populated places in Iraq Military operations involving chemical weapons Kurdish refugees Forcibly depopulated communities

History

Major population damaging events

Resettlement

See also

References