KRG delegation attends congress on chemical weapon prohibition

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A delegation of the Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) is visiting  the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, where it will raise the issue of chemical weapons victims at the 28th Annual Congress of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)

A KRG delegation consisting of Habil Haji Ahmad, director of the Anfal monument in Chamchamal, and Abdulbasit Abduljabar, representative of the Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Victims Affairs, attended the congress, which will last for five days.

Ahmad said that he wanted to convey the suffering of the Kurdish people, who witnessed one of the worst recorded chemical attacks in history in Halabja Mar. 1988.

There, Ba’athist warplanes under the direction of Ali Hassan al-Majid, infamously known as “Chemical Ali”, dropped chemical weapons on Halabja, killing around 5,000 people and injuring almost 10,000 others. The attack was part of Saddam Hussein’s genocidal Anfal campaign.

"Outside the conference hall, they have opened a palace dedicated to the Kurdistan Region and several important sources, books, and documents in foreign languages ​​about the genocide of the Kurdish people are displayed," Ahmad added.

The OPCW congress is held annually for a week in The Hague and carries out several tasks, including assessing the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and approving the budget and size of financial contributions of member states.

In Mar. 2018, an American human rights law firm from Chicago filed a lawsuit on behalf of 4,811 Kurds that identified and accused several European companies of supplying Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons and knowing that the purpose of the sale was to exterminate Kurds.

Read More: New lawsuit filed in Halabja against companies supplied Saddam with chemical weapons

According to The Tennessean, the Chicago law firm MM-Law has filed lawsuits against the following companies for being complicit in the Halabja massacre: Germany, for companies TUI A.G., Water Engineering Trading GmbH, Karl Kolb; France, for Groupe Protec and De Dietrich Process Systems; The Netherlands, for Melspring International; and Luxembourg, to prosecute General Mediterranean Holding. The lawsuits also seeks damages from senior officials of the former Ba’athist regime.