In April this year, Kurds and their friends in London gathered to remember a wound that may take generations to heal — the atrocities committed by Saddam Hussein, one of the most notorious dictators of the 20th century.
Looking at the modern history of the Kurdish nation, one can see several major turning points that showcase their bravery and resilience. But their past is also marked by frequent tragic moments. Among these heartbreaking episodes are the chemical attack in Halabja, the genocidal Anfal campaign, and the bombardment of Qaladize — all of which brought Kurds and Brits together in two separate commemorations in London last month.
Remembering Qaladize
In a quiet corner of Holland Park, West London, where the air carries the scent of fallen leaves and distant memories, a small gathering took place beneath a tree. The tree is not native to the UK, yet it now stands firmly rooted in British soil.
The gathering was a memorial marking the 51st anniversary of the bombing of Qaladiza, a small Kurdish city in Iraqi Kurdistan.
On that day in 1974, 163 civilians were killed, including nine students from the University of Sulaymaniyah, which had been temporarily relocated to the town. Around 300 others were injured in the devastating airstrike ordered by Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The power of place
The memorial in Holland Park unfolded beside the “Halabja Tree,” a modest sapling planted in 2019 to honor the victims of the 1988 Halabja chemical attack. Though unassuming in stature, the tree has grown into a living monument – its roots intertwined with British earth, its legacy steeped in Kurdish sorrow.
Among the attendees was a young man named Ahmed Hassan. His father had survived the Qaladiza bombing but lost his wife and eight children. Years later, he remarried and named each of his six new children after the ones he had lost.
This is not a metaphor. It is not the script of a film. It is history – raw, brutal, and true. A Kurdish father in Qaladiza rebuilt his family from the ashes, name by name, because memory was his act of resistance.
“This is our answer to genocide,” Hassan said. “Our enemies couldn’t erase us from the land. My father’s story is proof of that.”
Nearby stood Bakhtiar Mam Sheikh, a Labour Party member who had helped plant the tree. His words were quiet but resolute: “This is how strategic Kurdish advocacy begins. It begins with small ceremonies like this.”
“The tragedies the Kurds have endured – Qaladiza, Halabja, Anfal – are deeply painful,” James Park, another attendee and Labour Party member, added. “We mark them again and again here in the UK, because they must not be forgotten.”
Also present was Dilshad Abdullah, whose brother was among those killed in Qaladiza. His voice trembled as he spoke. “I became more committed to the Kurdish cause the day my brother died,” he said. “Every year, our family remembers him.”
When the air betrayed us
Elsewhere in South London – where the late winter cold clung to the skin like sorrow – a small group gathered outside of Lambeth Town Hall. The red-bricked building stood quiet as usual, its civic calm disrupted not by protest or performance, but by memory. Two granite memorial stones had just been unveiled on the pavement outside. One bore the name Halabja. The other, Anfal.
In 1988, in the final days of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraqi regime dropped chemical bombs on the Kurdish city of Halabja. In minutes, nearly 5,000 civilians – many of them women, children, and elderly – lay dead. That same year, a broader campaign unfolded in silence and dust: Anfal. It was a name borrowed from scripture, twisted into code for mass extermination. Thousands of Kurdish men were rounded up and executed – including entire families from the Barzani tribe, who were specifically targeted and buried in mass graves across the deserts of Iraq.
Now, 37 years later, the names had resurfaced in the form of two solemn stones – firm, cold, and immovable on a London street.
A wound that never closes
Among those in attendance was a man who bore both witness and wound. Shaho Halabjay – his wheelchair humming softly against the stone – approached the memorial slowly. His body moved with practiced effort, the result of decades navigating life without legs – lost to the chemical attack that took everything else from him when he was just a boy.
“Nothing can describe what happened to us,” he said, his voice scarcely louder than the breeze. “We were dying just trying to breathe. The air itself betrayed us.”
He looked down at the carved granite. “The world must recognize it. Genocide is not a chapter in a book. It is a wound that never closes.”
Then, with a flicker of something between pain and pride, he added, “No one seemed to care back then. What we went through was unbearable. But somehow, we began again. Today, Halabja is a governorate within the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. We rebuilt. And we are proud.”
A story re-rooted
In the crowd stood Mohammed Jalal, head of the UK Kurdish Association. His voice carried the weight of both resolve and exhaustion.
“Today is a historic day for us as the Kurdish community in the UK,” he said. “With the installation of these two memorials, we begin a new chapter. We will launch programs to collect signatures from Kurds and non-Kurds alike. Our aim is to deliver these petitions to Parliament and demand recognition of these atrocities as genocide.”
At the center of the ceremony stood Sarbaz Barzinji, the Kurdish-British councilman who had fought for years to make the memorial possible. His presence was calm but assertive – the look of someone who had carried this idea alone long before it became a collective goal.
“This is not a temporary tribute,” he said. “These stones are here to stay. Let no one say they didn’t know.”
He continued: “As a Kurd in this position, I see it as my duty to work in this way – on behalf of the Kurdish community and on behalf of Kurdistan. Years ago, I helped install the statue of Omari Khawar, which stands inside Lambeth Town Hall. That statue represents the tragedy of the Halabja chemical attack – a frozen scream of memory that will never be silenced.”
The wind pulled at coats and flags. A child clutched a parent’s hand. A woman adjusted her scarf. And yet, despite the chill, there was warmth – of presence, of witnessing, of a story re-rooted.
For one day, London stood still. Not to lament a buried past, but to acknowledge a living grief. Not to rewrite history, but to insist that it be read – aloud, in stone, and on every tongue that dares to remember.
