President Barzani Marks 52nd Anniversary of Deadly Qaladze Bombardment
President Masoud Barzani looked back fifty-two years to a day when the sky over Qaladze rained fire. Commemorating the 1974 Ba'athist bombardment of a university in exile, he recalled a 'heartbreaking tragedy'—a brutal entry in a long ledger of crimes against a people who refused to break.
ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - President Masoud Barzani on Friday commemorated the 52nd anniversary of the bombardment of Qaladze and University of Sulaimani, describing the 1974 attack by the former Iraqi regime as a brutal crime against the civilian population.
In a statement published on the social media platform X, President Barzani honored the hundreds of innocent citizens who were killed or wounded in the airstrikes on April 24, 1974. He characterized the massacre as a clear indication of the "chauvinistic policy and brutality" of the Ba'athist government against the people of Kurdistan.
"That heartbreaking tragedy was another crime in the series of crimes of that regime against our people," President Barzani wrote. He formally extended his respects to the victims of the tragedy and to all martyrs of the Kurdistan Region.
The 1974 aerial bombardment directly targeted the town of Qaladze, where University of Sulaimani had temporarily relocated in defiance of the central government in Baghdad. The attack remains a defining event in the historical persecution of the Kurds by the former Iraqi state.
The annual commemoration of the Qaladze bombardment continues to serve as a cornerstone of Kurdish institutional memory, anchoring the region's historical resilience amid ongoing political dialogues regarding domestic security and constitutional rights within modern Iraq.