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In Kurdistan, Kurds mourn victims of gas attacks
20 years ago
17.3.2008
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March 17, 2008
HALABJA, Kurdistan region 'Iraq' -- Iraqi
Kurds mourned on Sunday the deaths of around 5,000
villagers from Halabja who were massacred 20 years
ago in chemical attacks blamed on Saddam Hussein's
forces during the Iran-Iraq war.
Kurdish villagers, dressed in black, gathered in
Halabja for events marking the anniversary of the
March 16, 1988 killings, and ceremonies were also
held in Baghdad and the main Kurdish city Arbil.
The attack on Halabja was blamed on Saddam's forces,
which carried out a series of brutal military
assaults in the 1980s in Iraq's northern Kurdish
regions.
Victims and their relatives on Sunday renewed their
demands for compensation for the losses incurred 20
years ago and that those behind the killings be
hanged.
"My three brothers and parents died in the attacks.
I am the only survivor from my family," said Suad
Hassan, 50. "We want compensation and we also demand
that Ali Hassan al-Majid be executed in Halabja."
Majid, the top hatchet man of Saddam who spearheaded
the strikes against the Kurds,www.ekurd.net
has been sentenced to
death for genocide after he was found guilty of
overseeing the killing of 180,000 Kurds in the 1988
so-called Anfal campaign in which around 4,000
villages were attacked.
Last month, Iraq's presidency endorsed the execution
of Majid, known to the world as "Chemical Ali" for
his propensity to uses poison gases against his
opponents, but no execution date has been announced.
His hanging had been delayed due to legal wranglings.
Saddam's regime said the military strikes against
the Kurds were a legitimate counter-insurgency
operation carried out during Iran-Iraq war.
Halabja victims said the company which supplied
Saddam with chemical weapons should also be sued.
"My nine children died in the attacks. I had six
daughters and three sons. We want the company which
supplied the gas to be prosecuted," said Ahmed
Abdallah, 75.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and his
ministers observed a minute's silence at his office
in Baghdad, while Kurds Arbil held ceremonies and
also staged street plays depicting the tragedy.
Government spokesman Ali
al-Dabbagh said Iraq was planning to seek
compensation from companies and countries which
supplied the chemical weapons to the former regime.
"We are also approaching the United Nations to
declare March 16 as an international day against
chemical arms," Dabbagh said in a statement.
At one of the ceremonies, residents of Halabja
unveiled a statue of Omar Hawar, a villager killed
with his children while fleeing the attacks. |
A Kurdish woman on Sunday at a shrine for victims of
Saddam Hussein’s 1988 attack on the Kurdistani town
of Halabja in 'northern Iraq'.AP
Chemical attacks in Halabja
Ali Hassan al-Majid, first cousin of executed
dictator Saddam Hussein and also known as 'Chemical
Ali', 'Butcher of Kurdistan' sentenced to death over Kurdish genocide, |
The statue shows him holding his daughter in his
arms, trying to protect her.
Photographs taken in the aftermath of the tragedy
were on display at another venue.
At the main ceremony, hundreds of villagers crowded
into a hall where community leaders demanded
compensation and justice, followed by traditional
dancing and folk-singing that expressed the pain of
the village, which is still burying victims.
On Friday, villagers laid to rest Ismail Abdallah
Rashid, 40, the latest in a still-growing toll of
around 5,000 villagers who have so far died. Dozens
of others are still suffering the after-effects.
"Ismail had been helping bury the victims of the gas
attacks on Halabja when he himself was poisoned by
the chemicals. He died on Friday," said Luqman
Mohammed, one of the founders of Halabja Victims'
Society.
Mohammed said Rashid had suffered severe asthma
since the poisoning, which slowly killed him.
Bahar Hassan, 40, a primary school teacher, said the
"terrible" events were still fresh in her mind.
"Dozens of children and women were killed by the
chemical bombing. Their pain and trauma needs to be
addressed," Hassan told AFP.
"We need more private hospitals to deal with the
victims who are still suffering."
The Halabja Victims' Society too wants the
perpetrators of the gas attacks to be hanged.
"We are demanding that the government execute Ali
Hassan al-Majid and his associates," said spokesman
Aras Abid.
"We are not concerned whether he is executed in
Halabja or not. What is important is that he is
executed somewhere in Iraq."
Copyright, respective author or news agency,
AFP
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