SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), Bafel Talabani, on Sunday welcomed the lone survivors of the deadly chemical attack of Halabja by the former Baath regime of Iraq in 1988.
“In a meeting, attended by the mayor of Halabja, Nuxsha Nasih, the director of the Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism group, Wahab Halabjai, they discussed the health of the lone survivors of Halabja chemical attack,” said a statement from Talabani’s office.
In the meantime, the PUK President expressed his support to the victims of the Halabja chemical attack, saying “you are our sons and we will support you in all of the stages of your life,” Talabani told the victims, according to the statement.
“Throughout history, the people of Halabja were the iconic example of struggling for the sake of Kurdistan,” Talabani said, adding the Halabja catastrophic chemical attack remains in our memory forever, promising the people of Halabja to spare no efforts to serve them.
On March 16, 1988, the Baath regime’s forces unleashed a cocktail of deadly gases on Halabja. Iraqi aircraft attacked the city with chemical weapons killing some 5,000 people and injuring thousands more.
The genocide was one of many horrific crimes committed by the Baath regime under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship against the Kurdistan Region’s people.
The Halabja victims were among some 180,000 people killed during the regime’s “Anfal campaign” against the Kurds.
