SEWSENAN, Kurdistan-Iraq (Reuters) -
Six-month-old Rizgar Ahmed's body was found with his
dead mother's breast still in his mouth. His
two-year-old brother Sardar lay dead nearby.
Almost two decades later, they still lie together,
one boy on either side of their 39-year-old mother
Zainab, buried in a memorial to 86 victims of a gas
attack outside their village, Sewsenan in Kurdistan
(northern Iraq).
They are just three of the more than 100,000 Kurds
who died or disappeared in the 1988 Anfal campaign,
a brutal seven-month Nazi-style onslaught that still
haunts the region and its people.
Plans to try Saddam Hussein for genocide over the
Anfal -- which Kurdish leaders say left more than
180,000 dead or missing -- have opened old wounds
but also raised hopes of justice.
"It's like being thirsty for water," said Omar
Fatah, deputy prime minister of Kurdistan. |
Former dictator Saddam Hussein
Photo : AFP
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"Now they are thirsty to see the punishment of
Saddam Hussein for what he did to the Kurdish
nation. Everyone would like to take revenge by their
own hands. But it must be in line with the law. We
would be happy to see the death penalty."
The gas came at about dinner time on March 22, 1988,
the day after Kurdish new Year, Nawroz.
As the shells fell, villagers accustomed to bombing
and artillery bombardments rushed to bunkers dug
into the sides of the ravines running through their
lush wheat and barley fields.
HELL SMELLED OF APPLES
"It was like hell. Like doomsday," said 76-year-old
grandmother Ghazna Mohammed Imam, twisting black
beads in her gnarled hands, her damaged eyes
constantly streaming.
"When we came out of the shelters, people were lying
on the ground everywhere, even the animals were
dead. We ran."
Imam was temporarily blinded by the gas, and wounded
in the head by an accompanying artillery barrage.
But she dared not seek medical help, afraid of being
caught by the army. One eye is blind, her leg hurts
and she suffers headaches and anxiety.
The use of a cocktail of mustard and nerve gas took
Sewsenan's villagers by surprise.
The bunkers, which had saved them before, this time
trapped many as the heavier-than-air gas drifted
down. Most survivors were those who had fled uphill,
into the stark Kopiqaragh mountains to the south, or
closer hills to the east.
"They had no idea, they had no experience of
chemical weapons," said Ghedian Maghdi, a towering
44-year-old farmer who lost 30-40 relatives,
including his wife's mother and sister.
"And the smell of chemical weapons is pleasant, it
smells like apples," he added.
Maghdi was away when the attack happened, seeking
food and other supplies to smuggle into Sewsenan,
which lay in a prohibited area which residents were
supposed to have left as part of a program to
relocate or kill Kurds.
When it was over, there were too few survivors to
collect the dead and wounded. People from
neighboring villages carted them off, treating the
wounded with whatever was at hand, often little more
than rags, ointment and homemade medicines.
The "Anfal," meaning "spoils of war," is a term
taken from a verse in the Koran that calls for
terror to be struck into the hearts of unbelievers.
The campaign devastated Kurdistan, and the fertile
mountainous region bordering Turkey and Iran has not
recovered economically or emotionally.
Infrastructure is still being rebuilt, and the rates
of miscarriage and psychological problems are high.
About 4,500 villages were destroyed and hundreds of
thousands of people displaced, tortured or killed.
Most villages affected now have less than half their
pre-Anfal population.
Saddam and his cousin Ali Hassan al-Majeed, who
earned his nickname Chemical Ali for using chemical
weapons before and during the Anfal, face charges of
genocide over the campaign. Five others will be
charged with crimes against humanity.
Most Kurds appear to want the death penalty for
Saddam, and many offer to carry it out personally.
Said 80-year-old Rashid Karim, injured in a chemical
attack as he fled through the mountains to Iran:
"It means we are going to get revenge. Revenge for
all those whose fate is still not known. I am very
happy when I see Saddam sit in jail and I hope they
put some petrol on it and set it alight -- he did so
much to us."
Reuters
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