Parents of nine dead in Halabja massacre decry inadequate services, compensation

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - An elderly couple who survived the 1988 Halabja chemical attack, but lost nine of their children during the horrific massacre, criticized the efforts of the governments in Erbil and Baghdad in providing basic services and compensations to the victims.

Thursday marks the 35th anniversary of the Saddam Hussein’s brutal chemical attack against Halabja. Warplanes of the fallen Baathist regime rained down a lethal cocktail of chemical weapons on the city on March 16, 1988, killing at least 5,000 people, mostly women and children, and injuring hundreds of others.

“This is our own government. We have fought, struggled, and sacrificed for this. I have nine children martyred. Two of my brothers are victims of Anfal. One of them was ran over by a tank, and the other was taken during the Anfal and never returned. I am the only survivor of three families, and my survival is nothing more than longing and grief, mainly because of the situation of the people” Ahmed Abdullah, who lost nine children in the attack, told Rudaw.

Ahmed decried the Kurdistan Regional Government’s (KRG) inability to pay its civil servants on time, as well as the failure of providing basic services like heating oil.

The Anfal campaign, named after the eighth surah in the Quran, was the codename for Hussein’s genocide which killed around 182,000 Kurds.

“I had difficulty breathing, so they took me to a clinic. I was holding one of my daughters. My husband, daughter, and I left together for the clinic. Once we returned, they told us our children had died,” said Hayat Hama Ali, mother of the victims.

The couple also criticized the lack of efforts made by both the KRG and the Iraqi federal government to revitalize the city following the attack, and the lack of compensation towards the victims.

Iraq and the Kurdistan Region’s top leaders on Thursday commemorated the anniversary of the chemical attack attack against Halabja, calling for hastening the process of making the city the country’s 19th province.

Kurdistan Region’s President Nechirvan Barzani and Prime Minister Masrour Barzani also called on the Iraqi federal government to compensate the victims of the brutal attack “without delay.”

The chemical attack was part of a longer genocidal campaign against Iraq’s Kurds by the Baathist regime that continues to resonate in the mind of Kurds to this day.