The village's population fluctuated dramatically, as it grew to approximately 5000 Assyrians, with 474 families, in 1954, then decreased to 1049 people in the census of 1957. At the onset of the First Iraqi–Kurdish War in 1961, Araden was inhabited by c. 3000 people, with 350 families, in which year the village was bombed and then razed by 700 Iraqi government forces, dispersing the villagers, some of whom were killed by government-allied Kurdish irregulars under the leadership of Mahmud Agha Zebari, father of the Kurdish politician Hoshyar Zebari.