UN chief commemorates victims of chemical warfare

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday honored the memory of those killed by chemical weapons on the Day of Remembrance for All Victims of Chemical Warfare.

"This year's Day of Remembrance for All Victims of Chemical Warfare is more significant than ever as it marks the 100th anniversary of the first time chemical weapons were deployed on a large scale in battle," said Ban in a message.

"The events in Ypres in 1915 should be a distant memory but the frightening truth is we are still grappling with the inhumane and indiscriminate effects of chemical weapons today," Ban said.

"It is an outrage that 90 years after the 1925 Geneva Protocol and nearly 20 years after the entry into force of the Chemical Weapons Convention the list of those we mourn on this Day only grows longer. The world has learned too little from the past at the expense of innocent people whose lives have been destroyed by chemical attacks," Ban said.

On the other hand, there is progress on the front against the use of chemical ammunition.

"The multinational effort to rid Syria of its chemical weapons program clearly demonstrated what can be achieved when the international community unites. Nearly all of Syria's chemical weapon materials have now been removed or destroyed, and the destruction of the remaining chemical weapons production facilities in the country has commenced," Ban said.

The secretary general stressed the importance of the Chemical Weapons Convention and strongly urged those few countries that still remain outside this framework to adhere to it without further delay, according to the message.

"On this Day of Remembrance, let us do more than recall the past; let us shape a new future by renewing our common pledge to rid the world of chemical weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction," Ban said.

The Day of Remembrance for all Victims of Chemical Warfare is observed on April 29 each year, the date in 1997 on which the Chemical Weapons Convention entered into force.

The Second Battle of Ypres was a battle of the First World War fought from April 22 to May 25, 1915 for the control of the strategic Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium following the First Battle of Ypres the previous autumn. It marked the first mass use by Germany of poison gas on the Western Front.