less than 50,000, and it may well be twice that number". This figure was based on an earlier survey by the Sulaymaniyah–based Kurdish organization Committee for the Defence of Anfal Victims' Rights. According to HRW, Kurdish leaders met with Iraqi government official Ali Hassan al-Majid in 1991 and mentioned a figure of 182,000 deaths; the latter reportedly replied that "it couldn't have been more than 100,000". The 182,000 figure provided by the PUK was based on extrapolation and "has no empirical relation to actual disappearances or killings". In 1995, the Committee for the Defence of Anfal Victims' Rights released a report documenting 63,000 disappeared and stating that the entire death toll was lower than 70,000, with almost all these deaths occurring in the area of Anfal III. According to Hiltermann, the figure of 100,000, although considered too low by many Kurds, is probably higher than the actual number of deaths. Aftermath In September 1988, the Iraqi government was satisfied with its achievements. The male population between 15 and 50 had either been killed or fled. The Kurdish resistance fled to Iran and was no longer a threat to Iraq. An amnesty was issued, and the detained women, children and elderly were released but not permitted to return. They were sent into camps known as mujamm'at where they lived under military rule until a regional autonomy for Iraqi Kurdistan was achieved in 1991. Following, most survivors returned, and began to reconstruct the villages. In Kurdish society, the Anfal survivors are known as Anfal mothers (Kurdish: Daykan-î Enfal), Anfal relatives (Kurdish: Kes-u-kar-î Enfal) or Anfal women without men (Kurdish: Bewajin-î Enfal). Trials Human Rights Watch unsuccessfully attempted to attract support for a lawsuit under the Genocide Convention against Iraq at the International Court of Justice. It convinced the United States Department of State's legal bureau that Anfal met the legal criteria for genocide. Frans van Anraat In December 2005, a court in The Hague convicted Frans van Anraat of complicity in war crimes for his role in selling chemical weapons to the Iraqi government. He was given a 15-year sentence. The court also ruled that the killing of thousands of Kurds in Iraq in the 1980s was indeed an act of genocide. In the 1948 Genocide Convention, the definition of genocide is "acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group". The