The series of Saddam Hussein's criminal attacks on the Kurds began in early April of 1987 with chemical aggression on more than forty Kurdish villages and towns, with the direct implementation of the criminal Ali Hassan al-Majid (Chemical Ali), and the aggression against the town of Halabja in 1988 was the most prominent of these crimes.

More than five thousand civilians were killed within days of the raids, 75% of them were women and children, and more than ten thousand others survived and were afflicted by many effects and permanent diseases due to the aggression, including permanent blindness, cancers and various birth defects.