ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A delegation from Iraq’s environment ministry arrived in Halabja on Friday, a day before the 36th anniversary of the chemical attack on the city, to investigate the lingering effects of the attack.
Halabja Governor Azad Tofiq told journalists that a delegation headed by Iraq’s Deputy Environment Minister Iktifa al-Hasnawi arrived to pay their respects to the victims of the chemical bombing.
Hasnawi said they will also inspect the water and soil of Halabja to see “whether the impact of the chemical bombing still remains in the city.”
The delegation from Baghdad also brought over 10,000 saplings to be planted in the province, according to Tofiq.
In the last days of the eight-year-long war between Iran and Iraq, warplanes of the former regime of dictator Saddam Hussein rained down a lethal cocktail of chemical weapons on the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988, killing at least 5,000 people, mostly women and children, and injuring hundreds of others.
To this day, survivors of the attack suffer from injuries caused by the toxins.
The Halabja chemical attack, which was recognized as an act of genocide by Iraq's High Court in 2010, has left a permanent scar in the historical memory of the Kurdish people. It was part of the Baathist regime’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds that killed over 182,000 people.
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