The sculpture represents the Halabja Massacre or Bloody Friday, which was a massacre of Kurdish people that took place on 16 March 1988, during the closing days of the Iran–Iraq War in the Kurdish city of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack was part of the Al-Anfal Campaign in Kurdistan, as well as part of the Iraqi Army’s attempt to repel the Iranian Operation Zafar 7. In the monument two of the victims of the mentioned massacre portrait from a photograph taken several hours after the invasion, that is known as Omar Khawar and the child. Became a symbol for the massacre worldwide, in international media.