Gassed once, Kurds fear reprise

In Halabja, Arif says the prospect of another chemical strike is "the worry of our day and night." To listen to her account of March 16, 1988, is to understand why. The attack remains the most devastating use of chemical weapons against civilians since the Nazi exterminations of Jews during World War II.

At midday, Iraqi forces began bombing the city, a front line in the Iran-Iraq war and an area of Iranian infiltration. Roukhosh Arif, her husband, Abdullah, and their daughter Parwa descended into their basement with 23 others. The bombing was so intense that one blast jarred their lantern and extinguished its flame. After another explosion close by, they heard a neighbor screaming that four people in his house had died.

"We had a miserable time," says Abdullah, a placid man who parts his hair neatly over his rectangular face. "The young cried and shouted and demanded to go out and the adults prayed and raised their hands to God to save us."

At one point, they thought the Iraqis were firing duds, since munitions were landing without an explosion. Then they realized the rumors of the past few days had been accurate. The Iraqis were using chemical weapons. The Arifs and others in the basement could smell traces of the gases.

The four families waited for the attack to subside.

At about 6 p.m., the Arifs and another family decided to flee. Abdullah carried a bundle of food and clothes. Roukhosh held Parwa. They opened the door and went up the stairs to the outside world. They found the streets clotted with the dead and the dying.

Roukhosh remembers passing a stream were people had tried to rinse their burning eyes and cool their faces. They were bent over the water, but they weren't moving. Too tired to lift their heads, the people had drowned.

Disoriented, her eyes hurting and her vision failing, Roukhosh quickly felt too exhausted to carry the baby. Other parents were also fading, begging those still on their feet to take children to safety. "You couldn't help them, so you just ran away," recalls Roukhosh, an engaging woman with thick eyebrows and round cheeks. "Nobody was in the business of helping others."

Two relatives saved her - one took Parwa and another led Roukhosh and Abdullah out of the city. By the time they reached a nearby village, they were blind, but regained their sight several weeks later.

Today, the Arifs have other health problems they attribute to the Iraqi gas: Abdullah's lungs bleed and Roukhosh has had an operation to remove tissue from her eyes. They know that if they have to face another attack, they will not be able to flee. Parwa, now a teenager, has a sister and three brothers. The Arifs say they won't be able to carry their little ones.

This realization stirs a memory of March 16. The two families who stayed in the shelter that evening did so because they had too many small children to carry. All of them - 14 people - died.

"The only preparations we have now are the same as we had 15 years ago. Nobody has helped us. Nobody has given us a hand," says Abdullah, who has seen television coverage of Israeli and Kuwaiti programs to protect their citizens from chemical attack.

If the worst happens, he says, he and his family will make do with "just the wet towels and the wet blankets and whatever else we have."

• Staff writer Faye Bowers contributed to this report from Washington.

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