In Iraqi Kurdistan, remembering Halabja Genocide is not just a history, it is a Warning.
On March 16, 1988, exactly 38 years ago, the former dictator of Iraq Saddam Hussein and his totalitarian regime launched a weapon of mass destruction and chemical attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, which at that time was suspected of collaborating with Iran, killing thousands of civilians. Thirty-eight years later, thousands of survivors remain haunted by those traumatic experience, In that chemical attack, eleven members of my distant relatives were martyred during the bombing ordered by former dictator Saddam Hussein on March 16, 1988, in the town of Halabja, a Kurdish city located at the edge of eastern Iraq and the high Iranian mountains. I remember we were making home made masks from coals and a piece of cloth shaped like the masks we wore during the Covid-19 Pandemic in preparation for another chemical attach as the regime did not hesitate to crush the Kurdish dissident voices and those who revolted against his tyrannica...