On March 16, 1988, warplanes from the Baath regime dropped chemical bombs on civilians in Halabja city, Kurdistan Region. Over 5,000 people were killed immediately, and more than 10,000 were injured. Even after 35 year of Halabja Chemical attack s, the impact of the tragic event lingers as many children are missing and hundreds continue to suffer from their injuries.
The Halabja chemical attack was one of several brutal attacks against the Kurdish people, including the killing of thousands of Kurdish families in the 1970s-80s, the slaughter of thousands of Barzanis in 1983, and the Anfal campaign in 1988. Before the gas attack on Halabja, the Iraqi air force deployed a range of chemical weapons, including nerve agents such as VX, Sarin, and Tabun, as well as the devastating but less sophisticated mustard gas that traces its use back to World War I. Preceding the gas attack, there were two days of conventional bombing.
Considered the second most horrific crime against humanity after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, the Halabja chemical attack shocked the world. In 2003, Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam Hussein’s cousin and a top general in his government, found responsible for the attack. After years of trial, He was sentenced to death and executed on January 25, 2010.
Last year , the federal government of Iraq issued an executive order officially recognizing the Kurdish city of Halabja as its 19th province. 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.The decision saw approval by the people of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), which had previously acknowledged Halabja as the fourth province in the Kurdistan Region in 2014.
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