The Dekan Cave Massacre Crime
“Dakan is an attractive village located alongside the Khazir River at the foothills of Khiri Mountain in the Sheikhan area, with a population of about 20 to 30 families engaged in farming. On August 18, 1969, the Dakan Cave, located in the northeast of the Sheikhan district, was turned into a field of massacre by the Iraqi army, resulting in 77 martyrs and nine severely burned victims.
The Ba’athists seized power in Iraq through a military coup from July 17 to 30, 1968. Like previous governments, they began negotiations and promised to resolve the Kurds’ issues. However, they quickly refrained from meeting the Kurds’ demands. The Iraqi army resumed its attacks on Kurdish villages and Peshmerga positions. One of the areas, Aqra-Sheikhan, was again attacked by the Ba’athist military and its mercenaries (Jash), leading to numerous crimes and casualties, including the Dakan Cave massacre.”
The Dakan Cave Massacre
According to witnesses, on 18/8/1969 at 4 p.m., the army of the toppled Ba’ath regime massacred civilians in the Dakan Cave. Sometime before the incident, after the unarmed and defenseless villagers of Dakan realized they were being targeted, they were shelled from evening to morning with long-range artillery. Subsequently, air raids began. One of the witnesses claims to have counted 14 airplanes. Therefore, women, children, and older people sought refuge in the cave to protect themselves. After the regime’s army was informed of their presence in the cave, they set it on fire. According to various reports, 70 to 80 people were massacred, including women, children, and older men. This number included 29 women, of which six were pregnant, and 37 children, seven of whom were under a year old. The age range of the victims varied from unborn babies to 80 years old.
Nine others escaped the massacre with severe injuries and secretly received treatment at relatives’ homes in Akre. They did not dare to take them to the hospital for fear of arrest. According to one survivor, a doctor from the Akre hospital told our relatives not to bring us to the hospital because we could all get arrested and advised us to send medicine to our family’s home. She also mentioned that she is the only one alive out of seven family members.
After Masscare Dakan Cave
Sixteen days after the atrocity, the Peshmerga reached Dukan Cave and were met with a heart-wrenching scene. Until their arrival, no one had been able to approach the cave due to the horrendous odor of the burnt victims and local conditions. Also, due to the cemetery of the Dakan village being nearly two kilometers away, they couldn’t transfer the decomposed and scattered bodies there. Therefore, with the help of the Peshmerga, they decided to dig four collective graves resembling trenches half a meter deep. Digging was challenging because of the hardness and solidity of the stony and mountainous terrain and the lack of proper tools. They gathered the victims’ bones, still clothed, with shovels, wrapped them in blankets, and placed them in the mass graves.
Haj Mirkhan Dolmari, one of the senior Peshmerga witnesses to this crime, said: “Conducting such a funeral was challenging, but we had to decide with their relatives to bury the bodies.” He also mentioned, “Among the corpses, I saw small white skulls and counted the skulls of seven children under one year.” He stated that the number of those killed was around 80.
Fourteen martyrs belonged to the Mahmoud Salim Dakani family, 22 martyrs to the Rasul Dakani family, seven martyrs to the Darwish Sabti Barzani family, 15 martyrs to the Ramadan Niroke family, and 13 other martyrs belonged to various other families, including six unborn babies.
The bones of the victims remain buried in four mass graves beneath the rocks in front of the cave. The relatives of the victims never forget the heartbreaking scenes that followed the burning, including the entwined bones of a mother and her unborn child, reminding me of the mother and her 8-month-old fetus found in a mass grave in Hazra in the Mosul-Ninawa area in 2003, which belonged to the Anfal genocide in 1988. There’s also a scene where the bones of a mother who held her son to escape the flames burned together.”
He said several people, including three women and an older man, were trying to escape and looking for water with their half-burnt bodies. They suffocated and died due to burns, injuries, and thirst. Their bodies had been left for a long time, and animals had eaten their flesh.
The Dakan cave massacre case in the High Criminal Court of Iraq
The Dakan cave massacre case is one of the cases referred to the High Criminal Court of Iraq. However, due to the reduction of the scope of duties and powers of the court, the result has not yet been reached. Like 14 other cases, no final decision has been made.