Saddam Hussein did not limit his genocide to identifiably Kurdish groups; he also targeted the predominantly Shiite Marsh Arabs of southeastern Iraq, the direct descendants of the ancient Mesopotamians. By destroying more than 95% of the region's marshes, he effectively depleted its food supply and destroyed the entire millennia-old culture, reducing the number of Marsh Arabs from 250,000 to approximately 30,000. It is unknown how much of this population drop can be attributed to direct starvation and how much to migration, but the human cost was unquestionably high.
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