WREATHS were laid in Iraq’s Kurdistan region today in memory of the 5,000 people killed in the Halabja chemical attack more than three decades ago. 

Relatives of the victims, survivors and government officials marched from the centre of the city, which borders Iran, to the martyrs’ graveyard where the flowers were laid.

In a statement, Masrour Barzani, prime minister of the autonomous region, pledged that his government would continue to urge the Iraqi federal authorities to compensate the survivors and the victims’ families.

“Halabja has become an identity and symbol of the struggle and sacrifices of the Kurdistan [region’s] people in the world,” he said, adding that more must be done to prevent a genocide of the Kurds.

Regional President Nechirvan Barzani stressed that the Iraqi government had a moral duty to compensate the families of those who died. 

“Serving the wounded and families of the victims requires more work and steps from us,” he said.

“The world must unite to eliminate WMDs [weapons of mass destruction] and prevent another genocide."

On March 16 1988, during the Iran-Iraq war, the military of then Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein attacked Halabja. At 5,000 people, mostly civilians, died in what is now recognised as an act of  genocide. 

Carried out as part of the regime’s Anfal campaign, which saw the forced Arabisation of Kurdish villages, towns and cities, it remains the world’s worst chemical attack on a civilian population.

But 33 years on, many people complain that the Kurdish regional government has failed to invest in rebuilding the city’s infrastructure and accuse government officials of hypocrisy for ignoring the pleas of Halabja’s people. 

“I saw the disaster with my own eyes,” said Kurdistan Communist Party spokesman Subhi Madhi, describing the smell of apples that spread across the city. 

“I heard the mothers and fathers screaming for their children, saw the dead bodies of animals, a newly married bride who had suffocated from the gas in her wedding dress and the body of a newborn child.

“The wounds of Halabja are still healing 33 years later. Thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. And still the conflict continues.”

Mr Madhi hit out at government officials for failing to provide for the people of Halabja, who are still waiting for compensation and for the memory of their loved ones to be honoured. 

“The regional government should have set aside a special budget for the people of Halabja,” he said. 

“But another year passes and another anniversary is celebrated and we are still waiting for the government to fulfil its promises.”

One resident said that public services such as water and electricity are of poor quality and that no improvements have followed the attention that the anniversary brings.

“The sorrow is the only thing that is renewed for the people,” she said.