Reconstruction Of Villages Devastated In Operation Anfal
By Khedr Domli
Duhuk, 24 May 2007 (Voices of Iraq)
Around 1,679 dwellings were built in 30 villages from early 2004 to May 2007 in Iraqi Kurdistan’s province of Duhuk, which was heavily devastated during operation Anfal in late 1980s, an official source from Duhuk’s construction department said on Thursday.
“As early as 2004 the department started an intensive campaign to reconstruct villages in the province, which had been the task of international organizations. We managed to build 2,000 dwellings in two years and a few months,” Abdullah Mousa Muhammad, a planning official in the department, told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).
In 2004, 577 houses were built in nine villages and three compounds, while in 2005 and 2006, 1,367 were constructed. “Several villages have been reconstructed, in addition to seven compounds containing from 150-200 houses each,” Muhammad added.
The reconstruction works have cost 16.45 billion Iraqi dinars ($12,750,300 dollars), including maintenance costs for the houses that were built by international organizations, in addition to road building and school construction.
In 1988, thousands of Kurds were killed in an anti-Kurdish campaign led by the Iraqi regime of former President Saddam Hussein. During these campaigns chemical weapons were allegedly used to exterminate Iraqi Kurds, and an estimated number of 800 villages were devastated, most of which were reconstructed by international organizations, particularly by Habitat for Humanity International, under the UN’s food-for-oil program. “50% of the destroyed villages have been reconstructed and nearly 400-450 are waiting for their turn,” Muhammad indicated. IraqUpdates