Qaladize and the University of Sulaimani: The Napalm Atrocity Etched in Kurdistan’s Memory.

Today, April 24, 2026, folks across Kurdistan find themselves once again grappling with the bitter memory of an appalling crime, one that still echoes through history. Back when the now-vanished Baath regime reigned, it unleashed a brutal assault on both the University of Sulaimani and the resolute city of Qaladize.

This was no ordinary act of war; it was a deliberate effort to shatter a people’s spirit, to snuff out voices yearning for freedom and silence centers of knowledge and resistance all at once.

It’s 9:45 in the morning, April 24, 1974. Without warning, regime aircraft swoop down and rain devastation, 16 bombs packed with napalm (a weapon banned by international law) slam into their targets.. No one is spared, not students or professors, not civilians or fighters. Institutions dedicated to learning are hit right alongside bustling neighborhoods; there’s no line drawn between academia and everyday life here. But why revisit this horror.. Because it wasn’t some isolated misfortune, it fit neatly into a blood-soaked pattern aimed at breaking Kurdistan itself.

The strategy was clear as day: exterminate Kurdish identity by attacking its pillars,its unity, its Peshmerga defenders, its scholars and youth who stood together as living proof that struggle can walk hand-in-hand with enlightenment. The human toll. Staggering. One hundred sixty-three people lost their lives; more than three hundred were wounded. Parts of Qaladize were reduced to rubble overnight, a city scarred so deeply that waves of terrified residents fled en masse.

Generations later, you’ll still hear stories about those days, the trauma hasn’t faded away like old paint on forgotten walls. And let’s be honest: That massacre didn’t happen in a vacuum. It marked just one bloody chapter in an ongoing saga of oppression under Baathist rule, a regime infamous for trampling Kurdish rights time after time. Case in point: On April 24, 1982,eight years after napalm scorched Qaladize, the townspeople took to the streets to honor their martyrs and denounce continued injustice. Their reward. Gunfire instead of answers; bullets where there should’ve been dialogue.

Many demonstrators paid dearly, some killed or maimed on the spot while others vanished into prison cells during yet another crackdown designed to cow an unbreakable community. Sadly, and perhaps predictably, the cruelty didn’t stop there. Fast-forward to 1989: The same regime launched fresh campaigns across Kurdistan targeting entire swaths of territory for forced displacement (think mass relocation under duress).

Residents from Qaladize along with villages like Pishdar found themselves herded into complexes such as Khabat, Daretuu, Gewergosk (all within Erbil Governorate), plus Bazian and other spots inside Sulaimani Governorate, all under dehumanizing conditions stripped bare of dignity or basic comfort,a total isolation imposed without mercy.

For years afterward. Qaladize remained little more than ruins, a festering wound left open until hope finally flickered back during Kurdistan's uprising in 1991. Slowly but surely locals began reclaiming what had been stolen from them, rebuilding homes brick by painstaking brick, even as memories lingered like shadows at dusk.

To honor those sacrifices, and ensure they’re never swept aside, the Council of Ministers for Iraq's Kurdistan Region issued Order No. 2262 on March 4th, 2013: From then onward every April 24 would be “University Martyr” Day, a moment each year when universities pause formal lessons to remember what happened in Qaladize via cultural gatherings and academic events affirming this simple truth: What these martyrs endured wasn’t just loss, it sparked lasting awareness about dignity and belonging that refuses to die out.

So here’s what really matters today, not simply recalling tragedy for its own sake but recognizing how these wounds transformed into guiding lights for future generations across Kurdistan’s landscape. Those lost lives aren’t mere statistics, they’re symbols reminding us tyranny may scorch earth, but can never truly erase faith or identity rooted deep within a people determined not only to survive, but stand tall against any storm thrown their way.

Kawa Abban

Ambassador at Largest at IIMSAM-United Nation