Halabja chemical attack

Halabja chemical attack
Part of Al-Anfal Campaign and Operation Zafar 7 (during the Iran–Iraq War)
Date March 16, 1988 Location 35°11′N 45°59′E / 35.183°N 45.983°E / 35.183; 45.983 (Halabja Poison Gas Attack)Coordinates: 35°11′N 45°59′E / 35.183°N 45.983°E / 35.183; 45.983 (Halabja Poison Gas Attack) Halabja, Iraqi Kurdistan Result Iraqi victory Kurds abandon Halabja, the town was destroyed by Iraqi forces
Belligerents
Iraq	Iraqi Kurdistan
Casualties and losses
3,200–5,000 killed; 7,000–10,000 injured

Iraqi victory

The Halabja chemical attack (Kurdish: Kîmyabarana Helebce کیمیابارانی ھەڵەبجە), also known as the Halabja Massacre or Bloody Friday, was a massacre against the Kurdish people that took place on March 16, 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in the Kurdish city of Halabja in Southern Kurdistan. The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in northern Iraq, as well as part of the Iraqi attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. It took place 48 hours after the fall of the town to Iranian army.

The attack killed between 3,200 and 5,000 people and injured 7,000 to 10,000 more, most of them civilians. Thousands more died of complications, diseases, and birth defects in the years after the attack. The incident, which has been officially defined by Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal as a genocidal massacre against the Kurdish people in Iraq, was and still remains the largest chemical weapons attack directed against a civilian-populated area in history.

The Halabja attack has been recognized as a distinct event of the Anfal Genocide conducted against the Kurdish people by the Iraqi regime under Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi High Criminal Court recognized the Halabja massacre as an act of genocide on March 1, 2010, a decision welcomed by the Kurdistan Regional Government. The attack was also condemned as a crime against humanity by the Parliament of Canada.

Northern Iraq was an area of general unrest during the early stage of the Iran–Iraq War, with the Kurdistan Democratic Party and Patriotic Union of Kurdistan militias joining forces, with Iranian support, in 1982 and 1983, respectively. The Kurdish rebellion was largely put down by mid-1980s. From 1985, however, the Iraqi Ba'athist regime under Saddam Hussein decided to eradicate pockets of Kurdish resistance in the north and strike down the peshmerga rebels by all means possible, including large-scale punishment of civilians and the use of chemical weapons. The Halabja event was also part of Iraqi efforts to counter-attack Kurdish and Iranian forces in the final stages of Operation Zafar 7.

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