Printer-friendly VersionThe Kurdish Globe
After the Halabja chemical attacks in 1988, too many children went missing. The Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs calls on parents of missing children to get DNA tests.
When the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein attacked Halabja town on March 16, 1988, with chemical weapons, many families in Halabja district fled to Iran. While there, some families lost or left some pf their children, including many newborns.
According to the Kurdistan Region Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs, 25 Halabja children went missing in Iran. And the families of the missing are demanding the Ministry search for their children.
After noting the demands, a delegation headed by the Minister of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs, Chnar Sa'd Abdullah, headed to Iran, and after a number of meetings the delegation found one of the missing children.
In a press conference, Minister Abdullah, sitting with the newly discovered child, Ali, now a young man at 22, said when Ali was four months old he was in a hospital in Kermanshah city in Iran. He was then transferred to an orphanage where he was adopted by a woman named Hamid Pur.
"When the hospital brought the child [Ali] to the orphanage, they told the orphanage that the child was the son of a Halabja woman,"said Abdullah. Ali was given his name by Pur, his adopted mother.
The Minister has called on all Halabja families who lost their children to visit the Ministry for DNA testing in order to find out who Ali's parents are. "Also we are afraid that the Ali's parents are all dead, due to the attack,"Abdullah added.
Gradually hundreds of Halabja people died and continue to die because they were affected by the chemical after the attack.
Ali said he wishes to find his parents and he thanked the woman who adopted him; he said she is dead now. "May God bless her soul; she was like my mother. She never made me feel that I didn't have a mother."
Ali pointed out that he would like to study at university in Kurdistan Region, but he doesn't have any Iraqi identification. He urged the KRG to grant him Iraqi citizenship.
A mother of one of the missing children attended the press conference to find out the fate of her child. Maliha Muhammad said her child was 9 years old when she left him in Iran. "My child is a boy--his name is Khalil Saleh. I have asked many people about him, and I don't where he is.