HALABJA, Iraq: When poison gas killed thousands of Kurds in Halabja in 1988, its residents never imagined they would ever escape Saddam Hussein's grip, let alone vote one day in a referendum on secession from Iraq.
The long-oppressed Kurds across northern Iraq are expected to get the chance to vote on Monday despite fierce opposition from the Baghdad government and regional powers who feel threatened by the referendum.
It will be a bittersweet moment for the people of Halabja, a rundown city of around 75,000 people still facing the after-effects of the attack by Iraqi government forces.
At a memorial to honour the victims is a statue of Omar Khawar, whose image holding his two dead twin babies which appeared in photographs around the world has come to symbolize the tragedy in Halabja.
Halabja residents interviewed by Reuters said they would vote "Yes". But they were only cautiously optimistic.
They wonder whether feuding Kurdish political parties can deliver on promises of a viable independent state when basic needs such as specialised medical care, jobs and infrastructure have not been met.
"He would rest peacefully knowing that we will vote Yes," said Khawar's nephew Borhan Gharib.
"We think freedom is better than anything. There is no country that gets independence without a price."
SADDAM'S BRUTALITY AGAINST KURDS
The referendum will be the culmination of a century-long struggle for self-determination for the Kurds. When the Middle was carved up by the West in a deal in 1916 after the fall of the Ottoman empire, the Kurds were the largest ethnic group without a state.
The region's roughly 30 million ethnic Kurds were left scattered across four countries – Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria.
Though they were widely mistreated, the Kurds suffered a particularly brutal fate in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein gassed them, buried them in mass graves and gave their land to Arabs.
Halabja marked the peak of his campaign against the Kurds.
Saddam accused the Halabja Kurds of siding with Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. The gas attack was a turning point, winning the Iraqi Kurds worldwide sympathy.
Five thousand people, mostly women and children, were killed and thousands more wounded starting at 1153 a.m. on March 16, 1988 and more are still suffering from cancer and other diseases related to poison gas.
Yet, near the memorial is a hospital built for victims of the tragedy -- construction has been completed but the facility was never opened.
"I am very, very angry," said Lukman Abdel Qadir Mohammed, whose organisation represents the families of the victims.
"We still send more than 1,000 people every month to Iran for treatment."
Mohammed was speaking to Reuters in the house of Omar Khawar, donated by Borhan to the Halabja Chemical Attack Victims' Society.
On the pavement outside is the spot where Khawar died, face down on the ground, trying to protect his sons. Gas crept into homes and along streets. His wife and eight daughters perished.
Years later, the Kurds enjoyed unprecedented protection when Western powers set up a no-fly zone to protect them from Saddam Hussein's air force in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.
The U.S.-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 enabled the Kurds to eventually set up a semi-autonomous region.
OPPOSITION TO VOTE
But neighbouring countries worried that Iraqi Kurdish ambitions would embolden their own restive Kurdish populations to agitate for change.
Despite those concerns, stronger than ever because of the referendum, jubilant Kurds waved flags in the streets in the run-up to the vote.
Halabja seemed less enthusiastic, unlike other cities where banners drawing attention to the referendum hang on buildings.
Kurdish President Masoud Barzani has resisted pressure from Turkey and Iran, as well as Western powers, to postpone the vote for fears it could trigger regional chaos.
Kashwar Mawloud spends works as a tour guide at the museum. Like others, she says she suffers from cancer from the attack and has to travel to a major city to get treatment every month.
She never wants anyone to forget about the massacre. First she walks visitors through a room illustrating Halabja’s rich political history and culture.
Then there are re-creations of iconic images of the day of the attack and reminders of who orchestrated the suffering.
They include the rope that museum officials say was used to hang Saddam’s cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid, who earned the nickname "chemical Ali" for directing a series of chemical attacks on Kurds, including Halabja.
Nearby is the death certificate issued after Saddam Hussein was executed following his trial.
But when it comes to the future, Halabja Kurds wonder whether anything will change.
"No one has invested anything in Halabja except for this museum," said Mawloud.
POLITICAL RIVALRIES
The region has long been plagued by political disunity between Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and decades-old rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), headed by Jalal Talabani. It was most recently exacerbated by the extension of Barzani's term.
The KDP controls the western part of the region while the PUK runs the east, where Halabja is located. The two fought a civil war during the 1990s.
Kurdish officials were not immediately available for comment on allegations that Halabja has been neglected.
Galawish Kareem, 70, lives across the street from Omar Khawar's former home. She has not relied on any Kurdish political leaders for help since the attack destroyed her neighbourhood and killed 70 relatives, including her son.
"Barzani, Talabani have done nothing for us," she said. "We rebuilt our houses ourselves." She laughed when asked if the central government in Baghdad had helped.
For some, like Gibrael Omar, Halabja's dark past, not the path to independence, is still the overriding issue.
Omar and his mother take turns visiting the mass grave where 33 members of their family were buried in the days following the attack.
"I will vote for neither Yes or No," he said at a cemetery.
Some residents worry that the vote will only bring more bloodshed to the region, with fierce opposition from Turkey and Iran. The Baghdad government has called the vote unconstitutional.
Tensions are running high between Iranian-backed Shi'ite militias and Kurdish fighters -- who cooperated in the fight against Daesh -- over the prospect of an independent Kurdistan.
Despite the uncertainty, Mohammed, the head of the victims' organisation, says sacrifices must be made for the sake of liberty. He lost his siblings, mother and wife and is still suffering from medical issues.
"Conflict (between Kurds and Shi’ite militias) will happen maybe not today or tomorrow. But it has to," he said.
"But ultimately we will be fine. One hundred fighters from Halabja died fighting Daesh. We can send one hundred more to fight the militias."
Kurdish city gassed by Saddam hopes referendum heralds better days
Kurdish city gassed by Saddam hopes referendum heralds better days
Trump administration makes major cuts to Native American boarding school research projects
- The cuts are just a fraction of the grants canceled by the National Endowment for the Humanities in recent weeks as part of the Republican administration’s deep cost-cutting effort across the federal
- At least $1.6 million in federal funds for projects meant to capture and digitize stories of the systemic abuse of generations of Indigenous children in boarding schools
The cuts are just a fraction of the grants canceled by the National Endowment for the Humanities in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s deep cost-cutting effort across the federal government. But coming on the heels of a major federal boarding school investigation by the previous administration and an apology by then-President Joe Biden, they illustrate a seismic shift.
“If we’re looking to ‘Make America Great Again,’ then I think it should start with the truth about the true American history,” said Deborah Parker, CEO of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition.
The coalition lost more than $282,000 as a result of the cuts, halting its work to digitize more than 100,000 pages of boarding school records for its database. Parker, a citizen of the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state, said Native Americans nationwide depend on the site to find loved ones who were taken or sent to these boarding schools.
Searching that database last year, Roberta “Birdie” Sam, a member of Tlingit & Haida, was able to confirm that her grandmother had been at a boarding school in Alaska. She also discovered that around a dozen cousins, aunts and uncles had also been at a boarding school in Oregon, including one who died there. She said the knowledge has helped her with healing.
“I understand why our relationship has been the way it has been. And that’s been a great relief for myself,” she said. “I’ve spent a lot of years very disconnected from my family, wondering what happened. And now I know — some of it anyways.”
An April 2 letter to the healing coalition that was signed by Michael McDonald, acting chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, says the “grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities.”
The Associated Press left messages by phone and email for the National Endowment for the Humanities. White House officials and the Office of Management and Budget also did not respond Friday to an email requesting comment.
Indigenous children were sent to boarding schools
For 150 years the US removed Indigenous children from their homes and sent them away to the schools, where they were stripped of their cultures, histories and religions, and beaten for speaking their native languages.
At least 973 Native American children died at government-funded boarding schools, according to an Interior Department investigation launched by former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. Both the report and independent researchers say the actual number was much higher.
The forced assimilation policy officially ended with the enactment of the Indian Child Welfare Act in 1978. But the government never fully investigated the boarding school system until the Biden administration.
In October, Biden apologized for the government’s creation of the schools and the policies that supported them.
Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo citizen who’s running for governor in New Mexico, described the recent cuts as the latest step in the Trump administration’s “pattern of hiding the full story of our country.” But she said they can’t erase the extensive work already done.
“They cannot undo the healing communities felt as they told their stories at our events to hear from survivors and descendants,” she said in a statement. “They cannot undo the investigation that brings this dark chapter of our history to light. They cannot undo the relief Native people felt when President Biden apologized on behalf of the United States.”
Boarding school research programs are feeling the strain
Among the grants terminated earlier this month was $30,000 for a project between the Koahnic Broadcast Corporation and Alaska Native Heritage Center to record and broadcast oral histories of elders in Alaska. Koahnic received an identical letter from McDonald.
Benjamin Jacuk, the Alaska Native Heritage Center’s director of Indigenous research, said the news came around the same time they lost about $100,000 through a Institute of Museum and Library Services grant for curating a boarding school exhibit.
“This is a story that for all of us, we weren’t able to really hear because it was so painful or for multitudes of reasons,” said Jacuk, a citizen of Kenaitze Indian Tribe. “And so it’s really important right now to be able to record these stories that our elders at this point are really opening up to being able to tell.”
Former Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Bryan Newland described the cuts as frustrating, especially given the size of the grants.
“It’s not even a drop in the ocean when it comes to the federal budget,” said Newland, a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community (Ojibwe). “And so it’s hard to argue that this is something that’s really promoting government efficiency or saving taxpayer funds.”
In April 2024, the National Endowment for the Humanities announced that it was awarding $411,000 to more than a dozen tribal nations and organizations working to illustrate the impact of these boarding schools. More than half of those awards have since been terminated.
The grant cuts were documented by the non-profit organization National Humanities Alliance.
John Campbell, a member of Tlingit and the Tulalip Tribes, said the coalition’s database helped him better understand his parents, who were both boarding school survivors and “passed on that tradition of being traumatized.”
When he was growing up, his mother used to put soap in his mouth when he said a bad word. He said he learned through the site that she experienced that punishment beginning when she was 6-years-old in a boarding school in Washington state when she would speak her language.
“She didn’t talk about it that much,” he said. “She didn’t want to talk about it either. It was too traumatic.”
KSrelief Distributes 1,350 Food Baskets in Sudan’s Northern State
- The initiative is part of the 2025 Food Security Support Project in the Republic of Sudan.
DUBAI: The King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief) distributed food baskets to 1,350 displaced and needy families in Sudan’s Northern State, benefiting 8,100,on Wednesday.
The initiative is part of the 2025 Food Security Support Project in the Republic of Sudan.
The aid is part of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s ongoing humanitarian and relief projects, carried out through KSrelief, to assist needy and affected countries and peoples worldwide.
Key Pakistan ruling coalition ally threatens to withdraw government support over canals issue
- Federal government’s move to construct new canals on River Indus has triggered protests in Sindh
- Pakistan Peoples Party chairman says canals project threatens people of Sindh with “death by thirst”
KARACHI: The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a key member of the ruling coalition government, this week threatened to withdraw its support for the government if Islamabad did not back down from its controversial decision to construct new canals on the Indus River, amid fears of the project triggering water shortages in the country’s southern Sindh province.
Pakistan’s federal government has launched an ambitious project that aims to build canals across the country’s four provinces, which it says will help irrigate millions of acres of barren land and prevent food insecurity in the country. The move has triggered protests in Sindh where nationalist parties believe the initiative would cause water shortages, while critics say the project was planned without consent from stakeholders.
The PPP emerged as the second-largest political party after the controversial 2024 general election in Pakistan. It helped Shehbaz Sharif get elected as Pakistan’s prime minister for a second time and settled for the presidency and the governorship in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) provinces, areas where it performed poorly in the national polls. If the PPP withdraws its support, Sharif’s coalition government would no longer have the majority in parliament.
“Chairman Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has taken a resolute stance, emphatically calling on the federal government to immediately abandon its controversial plan to construct six new canals on the Indus River,” the party’s media cell said in a statement on Friday.
“He warned that if the project is not abandoned, it will no longer be possible for the PPP to continue supporting Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government,” the statement added.
Bhutto Zardari was speaking at a rally organized by the PPP in Sindh’s Hyderabad city. Speaking to charged supporters of the party, Bhutto Zardari said he would stand with the people “if I am ever forced to choose between the government and the people.”
The PPP chairman said his party does not believe in “opposition for the sake of opposition” and it is opposing the controversial canal project because it poses a threat to the federation.
He said that at a time when militant organizations were increasing attacks in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and southwestern Balochistan provinces, the government has stirred a matter that threatens people with “death by thirst.”
Bhutto Zardari criticized Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party and its governments, calling their policies anti-farmer and anti-agriculture. He questioned the logic to build more water canals in the country when Pakistan was already suffering from a water crisis.
“Let the government stop this canals plan, and we will present a 50-year roadmap for agricultural development,” he said. “Why would I not want to see progress in Tharparkar and Cholistan? But I will never compromise on the River Indus.”
The PPP chairman said the party would hold a protest rally in Sindh’s Sukkur city on Apr. 25 against the controversial project.
How Trump backed away from promising to end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours
- He has changed his tone since becoming president again.
- Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday suggested the U.S. might soon back away from negotiations altogether without more progress.
DUBAI: During his campaign, Donald Trump said repeatedly that he would be able to end the war between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours” upon taking office. He has changed his tone since becoming president again.
As various US emissaries have held talks looking for an end to the war, both Trump and his top officials have become more reserved about the prospects of a peace deal. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday suggested the US might soon back away from negotiations altogether without more progress, adding a comment that sounded like a repudiation of the president’s old comments.
“No one’s saying this can be done in 12 hours,” he told reporters.
The promises made by presidential candidates are often felled by the realities of governing. But Trump’s shift is noteworthy given his prior term as president and his long histories with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The White House on Friday did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Trump’s evolving deadline comments.
Here’s a look at Trump’s evolution on the way he talks about the Russia-Ukraine war:
‘A very easy negotiation’
MARCH 2023: “There’s a very easy negotiation to take place. But I don’t want to tell you what it is because then I can’t use that negotiation; it’ll never work,” Trump told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity, claiming that he could “solve” the war “in 24 hours” if he were back in the White House.
“But it’s a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them,” Trump said of the war, which at that point had been ongoing for more than a year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
MAY 2023: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours,” Trump said during a town hall on CNN.
JULY 2024: When asked to respond to Trump’s one-day claim, Russia’s United Nations Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters that “the Ukrainian crisis cannot be solved in one day.” Afterward, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said that “a top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war.”
AUGUST 2024: “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump told a National Guard Conference. “I’ll get it settled very fast. I don’t want you guys going over there. I don’t want you going over there.”
After Trump wins in November
DEC. 16, 2024: “I’m going to try,” Trump said during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club, asked if he thought he could still make a deal with Putin and Zelensky to end the war.
JAN. 8, 2025: In a Fox News Channel interview, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg — now serving as Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia — proposed a 100-day deadline to end the war. Friday marked 100 days since that interview. The 100th day of Trump’s presidency is April 30.
Trump becomes president and starts negotiations
JAN. 31: Trump says his new administration has already had “very serious” discussions with Russia and says he and Putin could soon take “significant” action toward ending the grinding conflict.
“We will be speaking, and I think will perhaps do something that’ll be significant,” Trump said in an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office. “We want to end that war. That war would have not started if I was president.”
FEB. 12: Trump and Putin speak for more than an hour and Trump speaks afterward with Zelensky. Trump says afterward, “I think we’re on the way to getting peace.”
FEB. 19: Trump posts on his Truth Social site that Zelensky is serving as a “dictator without elections.” He adds that “we are successfully negotiating an end to the War with Russia, something all admit only ‘TRUMP,’ and the Trump Administration, can do.”
FEB. 28: Trump and Zelensky have a contentious Oval Office meeting. Trump berates Zelensky for being “disrespectful,” then abruptly calls off the signing of a minerals deal that Trump said would have moved Ukraine closer to ending the war.
Declaring himself “in the middle” and not on the side of either Ukraine or Russia in the conflict, Trump went on to deride Zelensky’s “hatred” for Putin as a roadblock to peace.
“You see the hatred he’s got for Putin,” Trump said. “That’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate.”
The Ukrainian leader was asked to leave the White House by top Trump advisers shortly after Trump shouted at him. Trump later told reporters that he wanted an “immediate ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine but expressed doubt that Zelensky was ready to make peace.
MARCH 3: Trump temporarily pauses military aid to Ukraine to pressure Zelensky to seek peace.
Trump claims his 24-hour promise was ‘sarcastic’
MARCH 14: Trump says he was “being a little bit sarcastic” when he repeatedly claimed as a candidate that he would have the Russia-Ukraine war solved within 24 hours.
“Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that,” Trump says in a clip released from an interview for the “Full Measure” television program. “What I really mean is I’d like to get it settled and, I’ll, I think, I think I’ll be successful.”
MARCH 18-19: Trump speaks with both Zelensky and Putin on successive days.
In a March 18 call, Putin told Trump that he would agree not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure but refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire that Trump had proposed. Afterward, Trump on social media heralded that move, which he said came “with an understanding that we will be working quickly to have a Complete Ceasefire and, ultimately, an END to this very horrible War between Russia and Ukraine.”
In their own call a day later, Trump suggested that Zelensky should consider giving the US ownership of Ukraine’s power plants to ensure their long-term security. Trump told Zelensky that the UScould be “very helpful in running those plants with its electricity and utility expertise,” according to a White House statement from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and national security adviser Mike Waltz.
APRIL 14: Trump says “everybody” is to blame: Zelensky, Putin and Biden.
“That’s a war that should have never been allowed to start and Biden could have stopped it and Zelensky could have stopped it and Putin should have never started it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Talk of moving on
APRIL 18: Rubio says that the US may “move on” from trying to secure a Russia-Ukraine peace deal if there is no progress in the coming days.
He spoke in Paris after landmark talks among US, Ukrainian and European officials produced outlines for steps toward peace and appeared to make some long-awaited progress. A new meeting is expected next week in London, and Rubio suggested it could be decisive in determining whether the Trump administration continues its involvement.
“We are now reaching a point where we need to decide whether this is even possible or not,” Rubio told reporters. “Because if it’s not, then I think we’re just going to move on. It’s not our war. We have other priorities to focus on.”
He said the US administration wants to decide “in a matter of days.”
Later that day, Trump told reporters at the White House that he agreed with Rubio that a Ukraine peace deal must be done “quickly.”
“I have no specific number of days but quickly. We want to get it done,” he said.
Saying “Marco is right” that the dynamic of the negotiations must change, Trump stopped short of saying he’s ready to walk away from peace negotiations.
“Well, I don’t want to say that,” Trump said. “But we want to see it end.”
Pakistan admits ‘outstanding issues’ discussed with Bangladesh amid reports of Dhaka seeking 1971 apology
- Media reports claim Bangladesh sought apology from Pakistan for alleged 1971 war massacre in talks held this week
- Pakistan foreign office says both sides stated their respective positions in “environment of mutual understanding, respect”
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson recently acknowledged that some “outstanding issues” between Islamabad and Dhaka were discussed this week amid reports of Bangladesh seeking an apology from Pakistan over alleged war crimes committed in 1971.
Bangladesh and Pakistan were two parts of the same country from 1947 till 1971 till the former seceded after a bloody war. Bangladesh says about three million people were killed and thousands of women were raped during the war by Pakistani soldiers, allegations that Islamabad rejects.
Pakistan and Bangladesh started their first Foreign Office Consultations (FOC) in 15 years in Dhaka on Thursday, signaling a thaw in relations long strained by historical grievances and regional alignments. Responding to a question about Dhaka seeking an apology from Pakistan for the alleged massacre in 1971 during the recent talks, Pakistan’s foreign office spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said a “torrent of fake news or sensational news” was trying to undermine ties between the two nations.
“Some outstanding issues were indeed discussed during the consultations,” Khan said during the weekly press briefing on Friday.
“However, both sides stated their respective positions on them in an environment of mutual understanding and respect.”
He said the discussions were held in a “cordial and constructive” manner, saying that talks between the two sides being held after a gap of 15 years was a testimony to the existing goodwill and cordiality between Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The latest meetings between Pakistani and Bangladeshi officials come amid significant political shifts in Bangladesh following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajid in a popular student uprising last year.
Hasina’s government was hostile toward Pakistan but closely allied with India, where she remains exiled. While her removal from office was followed by the cooling of relations between Dhaka and New Delhi, exchanges with Islamabad have started to grow.
Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar is scheduled to visit Bangladesh at the end of the month, the first such visit by a Pakistani foreign minister since 2012.
