Halabja
To The
Memory
of
Halabja
Halabja is a small town in the northern province of Sulaymaniya (about 260 kilometres north-east of the city of Baghdad). Halabja lies about 11 km from the Iranian borders.
Halabja is surrounded by the heights of Suran, Balambu, Shireh-roudi and Shaghan in the north, south and east. The lake of the dam of Darbandikhan is to the west of this town. Halabja is situated in a fertile area with forest vegetation. The majority of it's ca.45000 inhabitants work in farming and cattle breeding.
The Massacre
Due to their appropriate location, Halabja and the adjacent villages of Khormal and Dojailah had for long time been serving as a stronghold of the anti-Saddam Kurdish opposition. The Dictator wouldn't forget this fact off course and as customary under the terror rein of Saddam the punishment would be extremely severe and cruel. But this time the dictator's oppressive retaliation exceeded all his previously recorded crimes.
Very early in the morning on Friday, 17th of March 1988 the troops of the dictator started the execution of a horrible massacre in which no civilian, child, woman, old or even animals and plants were spared. The town was bombarded by Saddam's warplanes with chemical agents. In the mean time the artillery bombarded heavily the escape route in a manner that Forced the civilians to stay in the danger-zone of the chemical bombardment. The chemical agents used were a cocktail of Mustard gas (which affects skin, eyes and the membranes of the nose, throat and lungs), and the nerve agents sarin, tabun and VX. The chemicals to which the people were exposed drenched their skin and clothes, affected their respiratory tracts and eyes and contaminated their water and food.
The direct effect of this crime was the death of more than 5 000 people mostly women and children. but the long-term effect of the chemical agents used in the bombardment of Halabja is still effecting the environment of that area and causing a wide range of health problems for the inhabitants. The horrible pictures of the piles of bodies on the streets and alleys of Halabja describe the tragic death caused by the subjection to the cocktail of chemical agents used by the troops of the dictator. The indications from the crime's seen as the absence any evident wounds , bleedings, or traditional weapon injuries on the strangely discoloured bodies of the victims, leave no doubt about the use of chemical weapons. This was later confirmed by the post-mortem analysis performed by the Iranian physicians on the bodies of the victims. Halabja has entered history as the largest case of targeting civilian population with chemical weapons in the world.
Though there were other recorded incidents where the Ba’thy regime had used chemical weapons against the Iranian troops, Kurdish villages in the north and the Arabs of the Marshes in the south, but Halabja still the most tragic and horrible of all other examples. For long time the innocent victims slaughtered in Halabja will remind us of the cruelty and barbarity of the most horrible example of dictatorship established by Saddam and his criminals.
Some pictures from Halabja
( Click on the thumbnail to get the enlarged picture )
