A delegation from Halabja visited Baghdad on Tuesday and met with the Iraqi president, the interior minister, and other officials.
“We on behalf of the people of Halabja thanked the Iraqi interior minister for issuing a ministerial order to open the directorate of Halabja passport two months ago, and asked him to issue ministerial orders to open the remaining directorates like identity, citizenship, information card, residency, border patrol and vehicle plate numbers,” Ali Othman, the acting governor of Halabja, told a press conference on Wednesday.
The Kurdish delegation from Halabja also visited the Iraqi health and environment ministry.
“We also asked for medicines and other medical equipment” for Halabja Chemical Attack Hospital, he said.
“The health minister happily expressed her readiness to deliver the needs we called for to Halabja Health in the next two days.”
On March 16, 1988, some 5,000 Kurds were killed in a chemical weapon attack on Halabja, carried out under Saddam Hussein’s rule. Another 10,000 were injured. Many are still suffering the effects of the attack today.
“We also visited the Iraqi oil minister and his deputy, and thanked them for the fuel they have been sending in the past two years to the relatives of the martyrs of Halabja chemical attack. We also expressed gratitude to them for sending some fuel to the families of Halabja after an earthquake,” he said.
“Two years ago, the Iraqi government thankfully sent a letter to our province that the Iraqi oil ministry will be treating Halabja as a province,” he said.
“We also asked them to deliver some fuel before the cold season arrives. Fortunately, he asked us for the number of families in Halabja. And we told them that we have 27,000 families in Halabja province. He promised to send one barrel of fuel to every family before the cold season arrives,” he added.
Halabja was designated a province by the Iraqi government in 2013, but many ministries and bodies have not taken the steps to deal with it as separate entity from Sulaimani province.
It was included with Sulaimani province in the recent Iraqi parliamentary election.
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