Kamangir (Archer)

When they heard Iraqi airplanes passing over, maybe none of them took it very seriously. Living in a village in the border of Iran with the hostile Iraq, there is only one way to survive an air strike; they all gathered in the small shrine. While they expected a series of deadly explosions, this time each plane dropped some small 250 Kg bombs and went away. 275 people died on the scene. Those who are living in Zardeh, the attacked village, remember yellow, green, red, and black smoke coming out of the bomb shells. Golbano, means lady flower, remembers that she rushed into the small river which passes through the village to wash her face. She also remembers that the water was hot. She didn’t know that one of the bombs had infected the local spring. Showing an old picture of herself, she tries to show off the face that she had, before her husband abandoned her.
Among the 1700 people who live in Zardeh today, 1500 are seriously ill and 70 have cancer. The rate of fetal death is 30%. Analysis has revealed that almost everybody is suffering from the effects of nerve gases. Golbano’s sister, Golpari, means floral fairy, puts it very straight “I wish to burn Saddam, exactly like what he did to my sister” (see).
Zardeh is not the only one incident in which Saddam used chemical weapons. 15-19 March is the anniversary of Saddam’s 1988 chemical attack to Halabja, a Kurdish village in Iraq, during the war with Iran. Statistics show that about 100,000 Iranian soldiers were injured by chemical agents. This does not include civilian casualties. There are still people in Iran who have to carry an Oxygen capsule because their lungs can no longer function very good. For those who happen to be in a chemical attack scene, death is a luxury.

Read more in wikipedia (see):
-Details about Chemical Weapons (see) and their usage by Saddam forces (see).
-Masacare in Halabja (see) (see).