It was life frozen. Life had stopped, like watching a film and suddenly it hangs on one frame. It was a new kind of death to me. You went into a room, a kitchen and you saw the body of a woman holding a knife where she had been cutting a carrot.

The aftermath was worse. Victims were still being brought in. Some villagers came to our chopper. They had 15 or 16 beautiful children, begging us to take them to hospital. So all the press sat there and we were each handed a child to carry. As we took off, fluid came out of my little girl's mouth and she died in my arms.

Hewa, a university student, survived by covering his face with a wet cloth and taking to the mountains around the city. He says that Iraqi warplanes followed, dropping more chemical bombs. "I got some gas in my eyes and had trouble breathing. You always wanted to vomit and when you did, the vomit was green.¹⁵ He says he passed "hundreds" of dead bodies. Those around him died in a number of ways, suggesting a combination of toxic chemicals. Some "just dropped dead." Others "died of laughing." Others took a few minutes to die, first "burning and blistering" or "coughing up green vomit." Journalists noted that the lips of many corpses had turned blue.

Hewa and his brother made it to the Iranian border at about 2 a.m. on March 17. Iranian helicopters took them and 48 others to a hospital at Bawa, an Iranian Kurdish town. Later, they were taken to Tehran for further examination. Hewa was in the hospital for four days. After leaving the hospital, he went back to Halabja to look for his family, without success. He was told that those who took refuge in the mountains were taken by government forces.

Shortly after the Mardin incident, however, two Britons -- journalist Gwynne Roberts and Dr. John Foran of the London-based organization International Medical Relief -- managed to obtain bread and blood samples from a local Kurdish contact. A scientist who analyzed the blood samples at London's New Cross Hospital says he found "unmistakable signs that the blood enzymes had been attacked by a supertoxic organophosphate," a potent nerve agent. In a letter published in the February 3, 1990, issue of The Lancet, a highly respected British medical journal, four British scientists concluded: "It is unlikely that we are talking about a common commercially available chemical, so that the chance of accidental poisoning is remote."

The governor of Suliamania (the nearest big city) came to Halabja and made a speech. He said: "Halabja is one of the cities in Iraq which has made many sacrifices throughout history. President Hussein himself has a special concern for Halabja and the people who spread rumours about Halabja being destroyed are your enemies and enemies of the state."

Someone in the crowd shouted "What did you do with those 200 people, we want them back!" . The governor said "Goodbye, see you next time".

"We ran over to the basement on the opposite side of the street to take cover. Half an hour later the planes came back from all directions - there must have been at least twenty of them, believe me - and in a few minutes Halabja was in ruins. Shortly afterwards we smelt gas. It was just like the smell of garlic. Some of us ran to get some water and we gave the others wet towels and clothes to put over their faces."

The Halabja poison gas attack was an incident on 15 March–19 March 1988 during the Iran-Iraq War when chemical weapons were used by the Iraqi government forces to kill a number of people in the Iraqi Kurdish town of Halabja (population 80,000). Estimates of casualties range from several hundred to 7,000 people. Halabja is located about 150 miles northeast of Baghdad and 8-10 miles from the Iranian border.