35th anniversary of the Halabja genocide

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HALABAJA

Halabja chemical attack remembered in Iraqi Kurdistan on 33rd anniversary

WREATHS were laid in Iraq’s Kurdistan region today in memory of the more than 5,000 people killed in the Halabja chemical attack more than three decades ago.

Relatives of the victims, survivors and government officials marched from the centre of the city, which borders Iran, to the martyrs’ graveyard where the flowers were laid.

In a statement, Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the autonomous region, pledged that his government would continue to urge the Iraqi federal authorities to compensate the survivors and the victims’ families.

“Halabja has become an identity and symbol of the struggle and sacrifices of the Kurdistan [region’s] people in the world,” he said, adding that more must be done to prevent a genocide of the Kurds.

Regional President Nechirvan Barzani stressed that the Iraqi government had a moral duty to compensate the families of those who died.

“Serving the wounded and families of the victims requires more work and steps from us,” he said.

“The world must unite to eliminate WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] and prevent another genocide."

On March 16 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, the military of then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein attacked Halabja. At 5,000 people, mostly civilians, died in what is now recognised as an act of genocide.

Carried out as part of the regime’s Anfal campaign, which saw the forced Arabisation of Kurdish villages, towns and cities, it remains the world’s worst chemical attack on a civilian population.

But 33 years on, many people complain that the Kurdish regional government has failed to invest in rebuilding the city’s infrastructure and accuse government officials of hypocrisy for ignoring the pleas of Halabja’s people.

“I saw the disaster with my own eyes,” said Kurdistan Communist Party spokesman Subhi Madhi, describing the smell of apples that spread across the city.

“I heard the mothers and fathers screaming for their children, saw the dead bodies of animals, a newly married bride who had suffocated from the gas in her wedding dress and the body of a newborn child.

“The wounds of Halabja are still healing 33 years later. Thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. And still the conflict continues.”

Mr Madhi hit out at government officials for failing to provide for the people of Halabja, who are still waiting for compensation and for the memory of their loved ones to be honoured.

“The regional government should have set aside a special budget for the people of Halabja,” he said.

“But another year passes and another anniversary is celebrated and we are still waiting for the government to fulfil its promises.”

One resident said that public services such as water and electricity are of poor quality and that no improvements have followed the attention that the anniversary brings.

“The sorrow is the only thing that is renewed for the people,” she said.

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The Anfal Campaign

The Anfal campaign was started on 23 February 1988

It started with artillery and air strikes in the early hours of 23 February 1988. Then, several hours later, there were attacks at the Jafali Valley headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan near the Iranian border, and the command centers in Sargallu and Bargallu.

There was heavy resistance by the Peshmerga. The battles were conducted in and around the villages of Gwezeela, Chalawi, Haladin and Yakhsamar which were attacked with poison gas.

This led to the poison gas attack on Halabja on 16 March 1988, during which more than 5,000 Kurdish people were killed, most of them civilians.

Had the world taken immediate action to protect Kurds after the initial attacks, the genocide in Halabja would not have taken place.

Sadly, world leaders still do not react quickly enough to protect Kurds from annihilation as was the sad case of the Yazidi genocide

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Carrying my brother's body

A survivor of the Halabja genocide has told Rudaw English of the horror of finding, then carrying his brother’s corpse for kilometers, 33 years after the chemical attack on the Kurdish city

On the afternoon of March 16, 1988, warplanes were flying over Halabja, a city around 15 kilometers away from the Iranian border; the Iran-Iraq war eight years in and showing little sign of relent. Thirty-one-year-old Qadir Hassan and his family were preparing to leave Halabja and return to their hometown of Byara, which had recently fallen into the hands of the Peshmerga.

“We were around 20 people heading towards Byara in a Duxford military vehicle that had been abandoned near our house,” Qadir said. “My brother Rafaat and my cousin Ahmad said they would follow us riding mules because they didn't want to take up space in the car.”

Qadir and his family reached a village called Eneb, four kilometers northeast of Halabja, when Iraqi warplanes bombed the area, he said. By then, they had lost sight of Rafaat, a newlywed in his early twenties, and Ahmad, in his forties.

“As we reached Byara, I just couldn’t handle the idea of leaving my brother and cousin behind, so I had to head back to Eneb to find them,” Qadir said.

He wept as he recalled the moment he found the bodies of his brother and his cousin on the evening of March 16.

“I found the dead mules, then I found the bodies of my martyred brother and cousin close by.”

“I couldn't take both of their bodies, so I first grabbed my cousin’s body and left him in a schoolyard and covered his body with a blanket, so that we’d be able to find him among the hundreds of bodies that had fallen on the streets,” he said.

Qadir then went back and put his brother’s dead body on his shoulder, carrying him through the dark by foot.

“It was dark, and my eyes were damaged from the chemical gas,” he said. “I couldn't tell if it was my brother’s body I was carrying on my shoulder, but it felt like it was him.”

When it was late at night, Qadir reached Kharpane, a village around nine kilometers east of Halabja.

“I collapsed in Kharpane with my brother’s body right next to me,” he said. “The next day, people found us thinking I was dead too, and they took us to Byara where I buried my brother.”

“The following day, I returned to Eneb in the hopes of finding my cousin’s body, but Iranian guards didn't let us back in.”

Two days after he was prevented from entering the area, Qadir was finally able to return to Eneb and search for his cousin’s body, but it had already been found by other relatives. Ahmad is now buried at the Monument of Halabja Martyrs.

More than 5,000 people, the majority women and children, were killed when Saddam Hussein’s regime dropped mustard gas onto the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988. Local survivors of the genocide recall the smell of the gas as smelling like apple, making it more pleasing for people to inhale.

Recognized as an act of genocide by Iraq's Supreme Court in 2010, the attack has left a permanent mental scar not just on survivors of the attack, but the Kurdish people as a whole.

Many survivors suffered long-term health problems as a result of the attack, which was part of a longer genocidal campaign against Kurds in Iraq by the Baathist regime. Qadir still suffers from long-term health problems, such as breathing difficulties, heart disease, and damaged eyesight.

"There are still 486 people who are seriously ill from the chemical attack in Halabja," Loqman Abdulqadir, president of an association for victims of the attack told AFP.

Qadir now resides in Byara, where he claims to know at least 15 surviving families of the Halabja genocide – all of whom have lost close family members and friends.

The survivors’ search for lost family members, especially those who went missing as children, continues 33 years later. Ayad Arass, who heads the local child protection commission, told AFP that “142 children are still missing”.

Saddam, overthrown in 2003 after a US-led invasion, was hanged in 2006, after being found guilty for ordering the Dujail massacre, in which 148 Shiite Muslims were killed.

Though Saddam’s execution was met with celebrations in the streets across Iraq, his death put an end to proceedings against him for the deaths of more than 180,000 Kurds, including those killed in Halabja, during the Anfal campaign of the late 1980s.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/160320214

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Swiba Mohammed, 60, one of the victims of the 1988 Halabja chemical attack

Halabja survivors still seeking justice

Hawker Saber is one of the survivors of the chemical attack Saddam Hussein ordered on the Kurdish town of Halabja 33 years ago, but he needs an oxygen tank to stay alive. Saber, who is hooked to the machine for more than 20 hours a day, was just three at the time but he still has terrible memories of March 16, 1988

On that day, for five hours, Iraq's air force rained down a deadly cocktail of chemical weapons, including mustard gas, on Halabja in the mountains of the Kurdistan Region, according to experts.

The attack still haunts Halabja as its residents, now estimated at around 200,000, still fight for justice, care for the ill and hunt for missing relatives.

"There are still 486 people who are seriously ill from the chemical attack in Halabja," Loqman Abdelqader, president of an association for victims of the attack, told AFP.

"They have respiratory difficulties and eyesight problems," said Abdelqader, who himself lost six family members in the massacre.

"Neither the federal authorities nor Kurdish authorities have set up a care programme to help them," he added.

None have kept their word

Up until the start of the coronavirus pandemic, it was Iran that each year took on the care of several patients, but always on a piecemeal basis.

Halabja families are also still trying to find children that went missing amid the chaos of the attack, with many having been sheltered and treated in Iran, just 10 kilometres (6 miles) away.

"142 children are still missing", said Ayad Arass, who heads the local child protection commission.

Halabja resident Swiba Mohammed, 60, believed for a time that justice would be served.

She even went in 2006 to Baghdad to testify against Saddam's cousin and henchman, Ali Hassan al-Majid -- an infamous general better known as "Chemical Ali".

Majid was hanged four years later for ordering the attack, which he said was carried out to protect Iraq against its powerful neighbour Iran. But his death brought little respite to Mohammed, who lost five of her children in the massacre, as well as her sight.

"For years, officials have been promising to send me abroad to have surgery so I can finally again see the faces of my surviving children," she told AFP. "But not one of them kept their word," she said between sobs.

European accomplices?

Saddam, overthrown in 2003 after a US-led invasion, was hanged in 2006, sentenced to death for the massacre of 148 Shiite Muslims -- who make up the majority in Iraq but faced repression under the Sunni dictator's regime.

His death put an end to proceedings against him for genocide over the deaths of more than 180,000 Kurds -- including those killed in Halabja -- during the ruthless 1987-1988 Anfal campaign.

Unable to convict Saddam, the residents of Halabja are now trying to force his accomplices out of the woodwork.

On March 13, 2018, a total of 5,500 relatives of victims sued 25 European companies and individuals, including Iraqis, who they say aided Saddam's regime in developing its chemical weapons stockpile, one of their lawyers, Ayad Ismail, said.

"There have already been eight hearings and the next one is set for June," Ismail told AFP, adding that "summons will be sent to companies cited that have asked to see the evidence."

But for Abdelqader, time is running out.

Since the fall of Saddam, he said "116 survivors of the attack have died", and their living testimony of the massacre with them.

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/16032021

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Sorry I cannot remember the full details but:

The poisoned gas left a residue in the basements of some of the houses in Halabja

Advancements in technology have enabled scientists to carry out tests of that residue and discover the chemical compounds within the poisoned gas and even the manufacturers and suppliers of the various compounds

EUROPEAN COMPANIES provided the gas that killed countless THOUSANDS of innocent Kurds

Europe and America still manufacture and supply the weapons that kill untold thousands of innocent people each year

Nobody ever mentions all the animals killed or injured by bombs

Let us not forget the CARBON FOOTPRINTS of all these companies due to the energy used in the construction and maintenance and staffing of weapon manufacturing plants

The energy used in the manufacturing of planes and the carbon footprint of all the air-miles used by bombers to deliver their cargo of death

While we - the happily uninformed proletariat - are told to buy locally produced goods and food and take holidays closer to home due to the damage all the air-miles are doing to the environment

CARBON OFFSETTING

A subject for another time but how many trees do weapon manufacturers have to plant for each bomb they drop !?!

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Missing children of Halabja

Halabja mother clings to hope of finding missing children 33 years after chemical attack

A mother who survived the 1988 chemical attack on Halabja still hopes to find her children, missing since they were sent to Iran for treatment in the wake of the disaster.

"We searched for them in Iran, we searched for them here. We asked for their whereabouts from everyone, but there was no answer. We never knew of their whereabouts. Where do we search for them now?" said Aiysha Ahmed.

Four of her children are missing, and one died in the chemical attack on March 16, 1988, when the Saddam Hussein regime dropped mustard gas on the town, killing almost 5,000 people.

Another 10,000 people were injured, including her children, who were sent across the border for medical treatment. Her husband developed a lung condition following the attack and died 15 years later.

"How could a mother forget her children? I glue my eyes to the TV screen when I hear someone has returned from Iran, hoping it could be one of my children," Ahmed added.

Ayad Arass, who heads the local child protection commission, has told AFP that 142 children are still missing.

Luqman Abdulqadir, head of the Association for Victims of the Halabja Chemical Attack, said many of the missing children were given to childless families in Iran, but they won't act until the government steps in.

"We can no longer bear the responsibility of returning the Halabja children unless the government assists."

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/17032021

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Halabja genocide:
Our wounds are reopened

Nine-year-old Shno Hamamin Salih and her family got out of their beds exhausted. Bombs fell from the skies over Halabja the night before; “we were scared, we were all crying, screaming,” she recalled

They were not to rest the next day either. A new bombardment on the city started on March 16, 1988, its force causing a sack of books from somewhere in the neighborhood to fall on the mulberry tree in the Salih family’s garden.

“It was there even after we returned, all rotten. It was from the nearby schools,” said Shno Hamamin Salih, one of the remaining four of what was once an eight-member family.

In 1988, Iraq’s Baathist regime planned an eight-phase operation that was part of its Anfal campaign against the Kurds. It began in Halabja in late February and concluded in Badinan in September. Around 5,000 people, including Shno’s mother, were killed when Saddam Hussein’s regime dropped mustard gas onto the city of Halabja on March 16.

“We were in our house when the catastrophe happened,” Shno said. “The whole family was in the basement when Halabja was being bombarded, mustard gas hit our neighborhood. My father said let’s leave the house and head south. We came out and saw that the neighborhood had been destroyed.”

“We went south, we didn’t know we were heading into the chemicals. We saw that some people had fallen, and then we fell unconscious.”

After the attack, the family stayed on the streets for 13 days, until Shno’s uncle came searching for them and sent them to Iran for treatment.

Shno and her sister are the only two remaining members of the family in the Kurdistan Region, following the loss of their father in 2006. Though she was a young child at the time, she remembers everything “as though it was now”.

Two of her brothers, Kaiwan and Goran, live abroad as they were sent for treatment.

Kaiwan, the oldest child, was 13 when the massacre took place, lives in Austria and requires urgent medical treatment, according to Shno.

Of her other brothers, one recently died due to the lingering effects of the chemical attack last year; the other hung himself in Halabja’s public park three months later, because of what Shino described as family problems.

Later in 1988, what remained of the family moved back to Halabja after they were told the city had been fixed up – but they were arrested by the Iraqi government soon after and taken to the notorious Nugra Salman prison camp, where thousands of people were treated with exceptional cruelty.

“They would kill and torture many people in front of their parents… then they would throw them outside of the prison and feed them to dogs,” said Shino.

She recalled her 10-year-old brother Zana being tortured by Baathists with cables in that prison, where they stayed for six months, surviving on handouts of “dirty salty water and stale and hard bread”.

“My father didn’t expect for him to live,” she said.

Survivors of the Halabja chemical attack suffer from long-term health problems. In 2019, the Kurdistan Regional Government opened the first hospital specially equipped to treat the victims of the attack. But Shino, who has suffered from lung and eye damage because of the toxic gas and needs surgery, said they have not been helpful.

“They have opened a huge hospital, yet they make you buy medicine elsewhere… there are people [survivors] who have a salary, and then there are people like me who don't have anything – they prescribed me a [respiratory] pump for 12,000 dinars ($8),” adding that sometimes she does not buy it.

Many of the genocide’s survivors, some of whom have since passed, have called on the governments of the Kurdistan Region and Iraq for treatments but have been neglected, Shno said; she also pleaded for her brother Kaiwan to be treated.

Shno now lives in the neighborhood where she spent her childhood. It is now called Omar Khawar named after the Kurdish father who died holding his infant in his arms – Shno’s neighbor, who later became a symbol of Halabja’s suffering.

Nobody who lived in the neighborhood remains there, Shno said; “everyone either died, left, or there are one or two of them left in a family.”

“What could March 16 be for us? They’ll hang Newroz banners the next morning. That’s it,” the genocide survivor said. “March 16 is an agony, our wounds are reopened.”

https://www.rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/160320215

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PM Barzani to encourage Halabja Tourism

Kurdistan Prime Minister, Masrour Barzani decided to establish the General Directorate of Tourism for Halabja Province on Monday

The newly-established directorate will report to the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Ministry of Municipalities and Tourism.

Azad Tofiq, Halabja’s governor, told Kurdistan 24 that the province welcomes the prime minister’s decision, anticipating that it will lead to the development of its tourism sector

“We welcome Prime Minister Barzani’s decision to establish the General Directorate of Tourism for Halabja Province,” Tofiq told Kurdistan 24. “I would like to thank the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, and the Kurdistan Region Council of Ministers for their important decision to add another important office to the administration of Halabja.”

Tofiq told Kurdistan 24 that the two main active sectors in Halabja province are agriculture and tourism.

“Creating the General Directorate of Tourism for Halabja Province will have tremendous development benefits for the province’s tourism sector,” he said, adding that it will likely “encourage investors from Sulaimani Province, and other provinces in the region, to come to Halabja and invest in its tourist sector by establishing restaurants and other tourist facilities.”

Any candidate for the position of the General Director of Halabja General Directorate of Tourism should have at least a bachelor’s degree in tourism, Tofiq said.

“As soon as we receive the written official order for creating the new directorate, we will nominate a qualified candidate who ideally should at least have a bachelor’s degree in tourism and we will send his/her name to the KRG Council of Ministers for their approval,” he said.

Halabja Province is located 215 kilometers southeast of Erbil, and 10 kilometers from Iran’s border. It became a province in 2014. Previously it was part of Sulaimani province. Today it is the Kurdistan Region’s fourth province.

On March 16, 1988, the Iraqi Air Force attacked Halabja with chemical weapons, killing 5,000 people in a single day. The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as an act of genocide on March 1, 2010.

The bombing was one of many horrific crimes committed against the people of Kurdistan by the former Saddam Hussein regime that ruled Iraq. Kurds observe the event every year by holding special ceremonies and standing in silence for five minutes on the street to pay their respects to the victims.

Halabja province is known for its annual Pomegranate Festival held every October.

In recent years, Halabja pomegranate have become increasingly popular outside the Kurdistan Region, with foreign diplomats serving in the region taking pomegranates from the region back to their countries.

https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/26 ... a-Province

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Click Image to Enlarge:

Album in honor of Halabja victims
Wladimir van Wilgenburg

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On the 35th anniversary of the Halabja genocide, Pervin Chakar, a Kurdish soprano singer based in Europe, will release an album in memoriam of the victims on March 14

IN MEMORIAM to the victims of Halabja : 35th anniversary

Based on Şêrko Bêkes' poem Helebce (Çwardey Mang bû) ‘Fourteenth of the month’ ', the album will be produced by Pervin Chakar at all digital platforms on March 14, 2023. pic.twitter.com/2hS2eoFexE
— Pervin Chakar (@PervinChakar) February 27, 2023

“I dedicate this album to the victims and their families,” Chakar told Kurdistan 24. “The Halabja massacre is one of the biggest tragedies that the Kurds of Iraq have suffered.”

In August last year, Chakar performed at the Erbil citadel and later traveled to Halabja. “I was impressed and felt it with my heart.”

During her visit, she saw a poem of the famous poet Sherko Bekas (1940-2013) on the wall in the Halabja museum. “Then I thought I could compose some of Sherko Bekas poems for the 35th anniversary of the Halabja massacre.”

“Many composers have composed compositions to describe tragedies and massacres. For example the Italian composer, Luigi Nono, composed “Ricorda cosa ti hanno fatto in Auschwitz (remember what they did to you in Auschwitz) and Polish composer, Krzysztof Penderecki. composed the Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima.”

She argued that people should show interest not only in Hiroshima and Auschwitz, but also in Halabja. She added that many people are unaware of the atrocities committed against the Kurds, like in Halabja, or in Roboski, where 34 civilians were killed by Turkish bombardment in the Sirnak province.

She explained that this unique album was composed by Chakar, Tommaso Saturnia and Ezgi Tekin.

“Sherko Bekas was one of the famous poets of modern times. He has many poems on Halabja. For me, Sherko Bekas is Halabja’s observer and spirit.”

Although Chakar was originally born in the town of Mardin, where the Kurdish dialect of Kurmanci is spoken, she sang the song “Çwardey Mang Bû” (the fourteenth of the month) in the Italian and Sorani dialect.

“I sang Çwardey Mang Bû - Una Poesia Per Halabja in Italian to thank the Italian people and Laura. I composed and sang a Bajar poem in Zazakî dialect” to preserve the dying language.

She hopes to travel to Halabja again and present the album to the Halabja Museum. “I just want the listeners of my album on digital platforms to remember this day.”

“Every year, the Kurdistan Region commemorates the anniversary of the 1988 Halabja chemical attacks, which killed 5,000 civilians, including women and children, while injuring 10,000 people.

People across the Kurdistan Region and the world commemorate the day in memory of the victims every year on March 16.

Recently Siyabulela Mandela, the great-grandson of the former South African President Nelson Mandela, also visited Halabja and declared his solidarity with the people of Kurdistan.

https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/story/30 ... ja-victims