Iran, Iraq Will Never Forget Halabja, Sardasht Massacres

“First they denied it happened—then they blamed Iran. When it was clear it was their own ally, using their own chemical weapons, they were silent. The West may like to forget about horrors of Halabja & Sardasht—31 years ago today—but neither we, nor our Kurdish brethren, ever will,” Zarif said in a tweet late on Saturday.

On March 16, 1988, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein ordered his air force to attack Halabja in Iraq with chemical bombs, using nerve agents such as VX and mustard gas to kill thousands of innocent civilians.

Streets were strewn with dead bodies of women and children. Many perished by water streams as they tried to wash the deadly gas off their faces.

The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians.

An attack on Iran’s Sardasht in June 1987 had also killed 650 civilians.

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