ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - Two Baath-era security officials are set to be tried on Sunday at the Iraqi High Tribunal for their involvement in the Barzani Genocide decades earlier, marking a breakthrough in efforts to bring the perpetrators of the genocide to justice, the case’s lawyer said on Saturday.

“Two suspects, both lieutenants in the security forces, named Saadoun Sabri Jamil and Shakir Taha Ghafoor, are being tried for their involvement in the disappearance and genocide of the Barzanis” in the deserts of southern Iraq, Ayad Kakeyi, lawyer for the Barzani Genocide case, told The New Region.

The team of lawyers for the Barzani Genocide case has so far submitted the names of 61 suspects to the Iraqi High Tribunal.

“This is the first time those accused of the genocide will be tried, who have confessed to the crime,” Kakeyi said.

On July 31, 1983, Iraqi regime forces, by orders of fallen dictator Saddam Hussein, abducted an estimated 8,000 members of the Barzani tribe from their homes in the Zagros Mountains, then executed them in the deserts of southern Iraq, burying them in mass graves.

The massacre was part of the Baath regime’s wider genocidal campaign against the Kurdish population called Anfal, during which over 182,000 Kurds were killed and thousands of Kurdish villages were wiped out and destroyed.

The Iraqi High Tribunal in May 2011 recognized the crimes committed against the Barzani population by the former regime as genocide and crimes against humanity under Article 12 of Iraq’s Law No. 10 of 2005, which tries Iraqi nationals or residents accused of war crimes during the Baath party’s reign.

Kurdish officials have repeatedly sought compensation for the victims’ families. The whereabouts of the remains of thousands of victims are yet to be found.