Dear shavers,
Exactly 21 years ago, the 16 march 1988, the Kurdish town of Halabja was gas bombed by Iraqi war planes. The bombs they dropped were not ordinary bombs but a deadly coccktail of chemical and nerve agents. The gas contained for example mustard gas, cyanide and nerve agents like Sarin, Tabun and VX-gas.
The gas spread through the streets where children were playing, in to the homes where some were still asleep and others were preparing breakfast. When the bombs were dropped a yellow-whitish smoke mixed with the air and left a sweet smell of apples. The children in the street began to sufficate, their eyes shed tears and burn like their skin blackened. Some died on the spot, others tried to run in to their mommy but insted tumbled and died on the doorstep of their house. The gas did not show any mercy and did not discriminate between men and women, elderly and children.
The symbol of the massacre in Halabja was Omar the baker, who died with his youngest son in his arms, his son not even a year old. His wife and other nine children died whlie trying to escape in the back of a tractor, the tractor hit by a bomb.
More than 5 000 people died in Halabja, most of them women, children and elderly. Halabja was now a ghost town, the people either died, flead or where deported to "Mujama'ats", newly founded settlements that functioned as concentration camps where the Iraqi regime would have control over the people.
Even today people suffer from injuries and deseases caused by these weapons of massdestruction, malfomated children, cancers, nerve damages etc.
Please give a thought to the victims in Halabja and a prayer that something like this will never happen again.
Below are links to some pictures from Halabja - Just so you know, if you are sensitive.
Omar and his son
http://www.kurdistan.org/Multimedia/Iraq.jpg
http://harryvanbommel.sp.nl/weblog/f...3/halabja4.jpg
http://adiewunde.files.wordpress.com...08/halabja.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_M5CaCD0e1e...alabja%2B3.jpg
