By Deborah Haynes, Defence Editor

A British endorsement would help gain international recognition that the suffering endured by Iraq’s Kurds was genocide

The Kurdish boy could just make out the lifeless body of his mother and baby brother from where he lay at the back of a makeshift bomb shelter in the garden of his home.

Helpless and alone, 11-year-old Kamaran Haider huddled in silence as the toxic gasses that killed his family in the town of Halabja burnt into his skin and slowly stole the sight from his eyes.

He survived the chemical attack by Saddam Hussein’s military on March 16, 1988 – part of a state-sponsored campaign of violence and persecution against Iraq’s Kurdish minority – but 5,000 men, women and children died in agony.

Almost a quarter of a century later, Mr Haider is supporting an effort to persuade Britain to recognise the atrocities committed by the former regime against the Iraqi Kurds over the course of two decades as genocide.

Such a move would help the families of the tens of thousands of victims of the chemical bombs that Saddam used against his own people in Halabja and during the so-called Anfal campaign across Iraqi Kurdistan come to terms with their loss, say survivors.

A British endorsement would help gain international recognition that the suffering endured by Iraq’s Kurds was genocide – a title that would pave the way for compensation claims against the Iraqi Government and the foreign companies that provided the chemical weapons. “Emotionally, I will be happy if it is recognised as genocide,” said Mr Haider, who was evacuated to Iran for treatment and eventually gained asylum in Britain.

“It is one way to get compensation for the people of Halabja ... and it is the best way to prevent an event like that happening again.”

Fears are rising among Iraqi Kurds that they face a new threat from the Government in Baghdad even though Saddam, a Sunni Arab, is gone.

“In Iraq everything is messed up,” said Thana’a al-Basam, 39, a Faylee (Shia) Kurd, who was present when her grandparents and ten other members of her family were dragged at night from their home south of Baghdad and deported to Iran in April 1980.

Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s Prime Minister, is a Shia Arab – Iraq’s majority sect that was also persecuted during the Saddam years – but he has been criticised for favouring fellow Shia Arabs at the expense of the Kurds, the Sunni Arabs and other minority groups.

“Nothing has changed,” said Ms Basam, who moved to Britain in 2004. “It is a shame when you feel that a party like Dawa [Mr Maliki’s political party] suffered under Saddam but now when they come to Government they start to follow the same dictator steps,” she said. “If no one stops him we will have another dictator in Iraq.”

In London, the all-party Parliamentary Group on Iraqi Kurdistan will publish a report today urging Britain to recognise the crimes perpetrated by Saddam as genocide. It will estimate that 182,000 people were killed during the Anfal operation in 1987 and 1988 alone. Many more Kurds died after being arrested and summarily executed, or being forced to fight on the frontline in the eight-year war against Iran that started in 1980.

Offering a glimpse of the terror and human suffering endured by so many during Saddam’s 24-year rule, Mr Haider recalled the moment that his world changed forever.

He was hiding in the underground shelter with about 35 people including his sister, three brothers, parents and a number of relatives and neighbours while the town shook to the thump of chemical bombs being dropped from Iraqi military planes.

“After about an hour and a half we started to sense a smell like garlic,” Mr Haider said. “We knew that chemical weapons had been used. Everyone in the shelter began to panic, with people crying out in fear. For 10 or 15 minutes I could hear crying and shouting and then everything went quiet. I felt tired. My skin was itching.” The chemicals numbed his emotions. He knew that his father, sister and other elder brother were dead.

Mr Haider, who now lives in Portsmouth with his wife and two children, Mr Haider said that he mourns for his family every day. Saddam was eventually executed after being found guilty of crimes against humanity. Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as Chemical Ali, a key henchman, was also hanged after being convicted specifically of crimes of genocide against the Kurds. Such justice, however, was not enough, Mr Haider said. “I lost my family, I lost my father’s house, I lost my possessions. Emotionally, I lost everything, People [in Kurdistan] still need help. Saddam Hussein dying is not enough to compensate for their suffering.”

If you are resident in the UK or a British citizen, you can sign the online petition to recognise the Kurdish Genocide: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/31014