After 20 Years,families of Genocide Victims buried their dead.The bodies of 730 victims of Saddam Hussein’s military campaign against Kurdistan, their coffins draped in the Kurdish flag, returned home to the Kurdistan region.Today were finally laid to rest.

Their remains were discovered last year in the desert in southern Iraq , and subsequently identified as Kurds massacred in 1988 by the former regime.

The coffins were laid out at a ceremony in Sulaymaniyah attended by grieving families and local political leaders. The dead will be buried in Chamchamal, where a monument has been erected to the memory of those who perished in the genocide. It’s estimated that more than 180,000 Kurds were killed and thousands displaced during what became known as the Anfal campaign.

The central government in Baghdad did not send any high-level representatives, but in a symbolic move, the Iraqi national anthem was played at today’s ceremony.