Chemical weapons watchdog says world must ensure tragedies like Sardasht are a thing of the past

The head of the world’s chemical weapons watchdog has called on the international community to renew its commitment to the lasting eradication of chemical weapons on the 36th anniversary of the Sardasht chemical attack, urging countries to work to ensure such tragedies are a thing of the past.

Fernando Arias, the director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), made the plea in a video message to a commemoration ceremony held by the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran on Wednesday.

Arias said the world will always remember the agony of the survivors of the attack and all others who continue to bear the brunt of the brutal atrocity.   

Sardasht, a city near the Iraq border in northwestern Iran, was hit by a massive chemical weapons attack on June 28, 1987, ordered by former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

More than a hundred of its inhabitants were immediately killed and thousands more were injured and exposed to the chemical agents, supplied to Iraq by the West.