KIRKUK, Iraq

Sixty-four years have passed since Kurdish members of the Iraqi Communist Party brutally murdered dozens of Turkmen people in Kirkuk, northern Iraq.

The massacre occurred on the first anniversary of the establishment of the Iraqi Republic.

“Even after 64 years, my pain is as fresh as the day the massacre happened,” Suat Kemal Terzibasi, an 89-year-old Turkmen man, told Anadolu.

Terzibasi was 25 when he lost his father and brother-in-law in the July 14, 1959 massacre.

“That day, we were getting ready to participate in the celebrations of the first anniversary of the establishment of the Iraqi Republic,” he said, adding: “While my sister, brother-in-law, and I were about to head out, gunmen raided our house.”

“They shot at everyone.”

Terzibasi said that gunmen opened fire indiscriminately, adding: “Both my father and brother-in-law were killed before my eyes.”

“I went through many difficult times in my life, and I forgot most of them,” Terzibasi told Anadolu. “Despite my old age, I did not forget a single moment of the day the massacre took place.”

He said that shortly after the gunmen left the house, a Turkmen officer showed up. “The officer drove the survivors out into a safe place.”

“Leaving the bodies of our loved ones behind was the most painful thing I’ve ever gone through. My family and I left for the capital Baghdad, then returned to Kirkuk after the events subsided. Gunmen had a list of the Turkmen houses in the neighborhood. They continued raids on the Turkmen houses they had identified,” said Terzibasi.

*Writing by Ikram Kouachi