Sirens sounded and streets fell silent yesterday as Iraqi Kurds marked the 15th anniversary of a chemical attack by Saddam Hussein's forces on the town of Halabja that killed 5,000 people in a single day.
US President Bush, whose forces are poised to attack Iraq, drew attention to the atrocity in a radio address on Saturday, but survivors said his words came 15 years too late.
"If America is using this attack on Halabja as a justification for war, then they should have attacked Saddam in 1988, not now," said Rubar Mohammad (32), who lost a husband she suspects is buried in one of Halabja's mass graves.
"It is too late to raise this issue now. It should have been talked about when it actually happened," she said in Sulaimaniya, a city in northern Iraq some 70 km northwest of Halabja.
Star Hussein Allahkerem (46), another survivor of the attack, recalled in his home in Halabja earlier this week how the West, including the US, was supporting the Iraqi president at the time of the attack in his war against neighbouring Iran.
Still bearing scars on his face and scalp from the bombs dropped by Iraqi warplanes, he said he was furious Washington and its allies could use Halabja to justify their own ends.
"At that time the outside world was with Saddam," he said.
Zaki Saeed recounted in a recent interview in Sulaimaniya how she lost a daughter who had gone to Halabja on the morning of the attack to see her family.
Tania, who was 20 at the time, died in a basement with three cousins. "His \ death would bring me so much joy," she said. "This is my biggest wish. I want him torn to pieces in front of my very eyes."
Witnesses recalled Iraqi fighters bombing the town at around 11.30 a.m. and different coloured smoke rising from the explosions. Some said they smelt apples, others garlic, but instead they were inhaling mustard gas and nerve agents. - (Reuters)