After the rule of Iraq fell under the authority of the Ba'ath Party through a military coup in July 1968, they intensified their war and attacks on Kurdistan once again. The Badinan region was one of the regions that was subjected to the attacks and assaults of the Iraqi Army in order to gain dominance and eliminate all obstacles in front of the military rule for which they had been struggling for several years. To that end, they carried out a number of attacks on various areas of Kurdistan, and in that process, a lot of innocent civilians became victims and were massacred. The epic of the Christian-inhabited village of Soriya was one of the series of crimes, massacres, and tragedies that the brutal Iraqi Army carried out to remain and strengthen their position against the leadership of the Kurdish people's revolution and the residents of Kurdistan.
Soriya is a small village in the Slivana plain belonging to the Zakho district, which is a few kilometers away from Fishkhabur. It is also located on the left bank of the Tigris River in the border triangle of the countries of Syria-Turkey-Iraq. The number of residents was about 20 families, most of whom were Christian, and they were busy with agriculture and animal husbandry in their daily work.
On September 16, 1969, a mine exploded under an Iraqi Army military vehicle on the public road near the village. As a result, all the passengers were killed and wounded. One of the killed was a military Officer named Abdul-Wahab Abdul-Karim. Because the aforementioned village was located near the scene of the incident, immediately on the same day, they sent a large military force toward the village under the pretext of revenge. When the people saw that a military convoy was heading toward their village, the village mukhtar, a religious priest, and the driver who was visiting the village as a guest went to welcome the Iraqi Army military force. Apparently, the Iraqi Army force, commanded by Lieutenant Abdul-Karim from the 4 Battalion of the 23 Brigade, when they reached those welcoming the village, without questioning, explanation, or listening to them, arrested all three and carried out the execution order on them and left them drenched in blood.
Then they besieged the village and forcibly took the people of the village, including women, children, adults, and young, out of their homes and put them in a wire (fence) and detained them. Then, very mercilessly, they attacked them and opened fire on them and set up a slaughterhouse for them. Then the Ba'ath military Officer did not stop there; he searched through the corpses, and whoever was still alive, he would shoot a bullet into their brain and stop their movement until all those who were besieged in the wire were massacred. After this, he ordered the burning of houses and homes and the destruction of the village, which was another one of the planned policies of the Ba'ath that it followed in the villages of Kurdistan to destroy the economic infrastructure, which was known as the scorched earth policy. During the burning of the village, they found five children in a grain warehouse and executed all five of them. They did not stop there; they searched through the bodies of the Martyrs and insulted them and began looting the gold and jewelry of the women, cutting the hands and wrists of the women to remove their bracelets, rings, and bands.
The total number of victims of that incident was the martyrdom of 39 people, including 9 women and 11 children, all of whom were buried in two pits; in one of them were the women and in the other were the men near the village. Of course, what is evident in that military campaign of the Iraqi Army against innocent civilians such as women and children, etc., is a crime that has crossed all boundaries of human conscience, and it has entered the category of savagery and the most brutal genocide against humanity throughout the last century.
Sources:1- Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement, Volume Three, Part One, September Revolution 1961-1975, Ed: First 2004.
2- Hozhin Masoud Sarni, The September Revolution in the Behdinan Region 1061- 1975, First Edition, 2018.
3- Ari Karim, Several Living Pages in the September Revolution, Khabat Printing House, Dohuk 1999.
4- Ibrahim Jalal, Southern Kurdistan and the September Revolution, Foundations and Collapse, 1961-1975. Fourth Edition, 2021.
5- Hawkar Karim Hama Sharif, September Revolution 1961-1970, First Edition- Salahaddin University Printing House, Erbil, 2012.