Twenty-six years ago Saddam Hussein committed the world’s worst chemical weapons attack on a civilian population in Kurdish northern Iraq.
On March 16, 1988, government forces attacked the town near the Iranian border after it was taken over by Kurdish rebels towards the end of the Iran-Iraq war.
An estimated 5,000 people were killed when Iraqi Air Force jets dropped poison gas on the town. Many others died later of cancer and related illnesses.
This week the residents of Halabja remembered those who perished. Photos by Safin Hamed / AFP Photo March 17
