Anfal Widows Get Little Relief

Fatah, 40, lives with her two daughters in Shorsh camp, which lies 80 kilometres west of Sulaimaniyah, in a small two-room house given to her by relatives.

“We can’t afford to rent a house,” said 40-year-old Fatah, adding that their main source of income is a monthly pension from the Kurdish Regional Government, KRG, of 120 US dollars, which barely covers their basic needs.

During the summer, the widow and her two daughters aged 22 and 23, work in the fields, picking tomatoes and harvesting chickpeas to make some extra money. In winter, there is no work to be found in the town and they have no way of supplementing their government pension.

Fatah’s husband is thought to have been among an estimated 182,000 Kurds killed during the notorious Anfal operation of the late Eighties. Today, the survivors find it hard to makes ends meet.

Shorsh was built by Saddam's regime as an internment camp for Kurds whose homes were razed during the military onslaught. At least 2,000 villages were destroyed and tens of thousands were forcibly displaced during the campaign, according to Human Rights Watch.

Today, 1,700 Anfal widows live in the camp, according to the Kurdistan Women’s Union.

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