‘Do you know what it’s like to lose a child? I can’t forget’

The death toll in Goptapa from chemical weapons was only exceeded by that of Halabja, which had been gassed seven weeks earlier. A witness to the Goptapa attack was MIRIAM YASEEN MOHAMMED who watched neighbours and relatives run for their lives and drop dead in village alleyways.

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‘Most of the villages in Kurdistan were affected by chemical weapons’

Poison gas undermined the morale of the peshmerga and terrified the Kurdish community. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) leader MALA BAXTIYAR believes the fear unleashed by this new and deadly weapon made it difficult for the Kurds to adapt to it.

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‘My childhood was on fire, flames destroying my memories’

The first major Iraqi poison gas attack on the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) badly damaged Kurdish morale. ABDULKARIM HALADINI watched as chemical bombs and shells rained down on the PUK headquarters.

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‘Our bodies were freezing and icicles hung from our faces’

Facing relentless Iraqi poison gas attacks, thousands of Kurds fled through heavy rain and blizzards towards Iran. KHIDIR MUSA MOHAMMED AMEEN describes how he carried his nephew on his back for hours before realising the boy had frozen to death.

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‘Some abandoned their children even though they were still alive’

The chemical attacks against the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the flight of thousands of Kurds towards Iran have been likened to the apocalypse. Two of MIRIAM AHMED WSU’s children died as she fled barefoot in deep snow towards Iran.

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‘The loss of my son is a never-ending pain because I wasn’t able to bury him’

The poison gas attack on the Balisan valley was a first for Saddam Hussein. Never before had chemical weapons been used by a state against its own people. NAJIBA KHADIR AHMED has vivid and painful memories of what happened.

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‘The Iraqis even killed horses – I’ve never seen such a sadistic military force’

When the Iraqi army blitzed Kurdish peshmerga bases with poison gas in February 1988, AZAD SAGERMA, a senior field commander with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), was unaware his forces would face a military catastrophe that could only end in defeat.

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‘Army roadblocks stopped food reaching us for weeks, forcing some to surrender’

Kurdish villages were a rich source of peshmerga recruits but their commitment to a free Kurdistan proved costly. BAYIZ RAZA PIROT explains how his home village of Haladin was targeted with chemical weapons for supporting the Kurdish resistance.

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‘Some people even left their parents behind in the snow’

A massive Iraqi gas attack on the headquarters of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) killed many peshmerga. SHORSH HAJI MUSTAFA RASOOL, an intelligence officer, was extraordinarily lucky to survive after his house was hit by gas shell which failed to explode.

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