IRAQ. Barzan. July 14, 2014. A Kurdish man stands next to an empty coffin that once contained the remains of a villager from Barzan, the hometown of President Masoud Barzani. In the late 1980's, Saddam Hussein's forces targeted Barzan, launching several attacks and massacres against its population as part of the Al Anfal campaign against the Kurds.
Many of the victims were sent to southern Iraq, where they were executed or buried alive in mass graves. The remains of 603 Kurdish villagers from Barzan found in mass graves in southern Iraq have been returned and laid to rest in this memorial cemetery on a hill outside the village.