On 11 November 2006, the city of Ieper, Belgium, commemorated the eighty-eighth anniversary of the Armistice that ended the First World War. The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) was honoured to participate in this solemn commemoration ceremony.
The OPCW’s annual participation in the Armistice Day commemorations in Ieper is an expression of its commitment to free the world free of chemical weapons.
On behalf of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Mr John Freeman, OPCW Deputy Director-General, laid a wreath in memory of the fallen of the First World War, at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ieper.
At Ieper, Belgium, chemical weapons were first used on a mass scale on 22 April 1915. During the First World War, over one million combatants were injured and over 90,000 soldiers were killed by these weapons, the first weapon of mass destruction ever used in combat.
The Executive Council chamber within the OPCW headquarters, located in The Hague, the Netherlands, is named the “Ieper Room” to commemorate the victims of this reprehensible form of warfare.
To sustain the memory of all victims of chemical warfare, the OPCW has also established 29 April as an annual Day of Remembrance, which occurs simultaneously with the anniversary of the Chemical Weapons Convention’s entry into force when the global ban on these weapons became international law. From that day, 29 April 1997, any stockpiling, development, production or use of chemical weapons is forever prohibited.
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