In 1988, the whole city of Halabja was bombed with chemicals by the Iraqi government. It is in that time that Ali Pour was an infant and was taken by a group of Iranian soldiers to a hospital in Iran and was treated. Later, he was adopted by a sister of one of the soldiers who took him. A little over a month ago, he was awaiting a DNA test to see if the person he was told is his mother is actually his. The DNA proved that the female who appears to the right side of the picture gave birth to Ali 21 years ago. For two decades, Ali was away from his real family. For two decades, his mother thought she had lost her child. For two decades, Ali’s mother wanted to see the person who gassed her town and killed her husband along with most of her children pay for what had been done to her family.
Today, the person responsible for the shameful act of gassing the city received his sentence. After several trials, Chemical Ali was executed today for being convicted of 13 counts of genocide. Before 2003, neither of Ali and his mother thought they would see this day. Many Iraqis never thought they would. But it happened. I hope, if this can prove to us anything, it will show us that there is an end to anything and anyone, even tyrants and mass murderers. But I also hope that this will mark a day that we also forget the past and its misery and look forward to building and serving a country that has suffered from criminals like “Chemical Ali” and worse.
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