"We want compensation and we also demand that Ali Hassan al-Majid be executed in Halabja."

Majid was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court last year, charged with genocide and found guilty of overseeing the killing of 180,000 Kurds in the 1988 Anfal campaign. Legal arguments have delayed his execution.

Some Kurds, who still see a higher cancer rate and other health problems 20 years later, are also demanding that the companies which supplied the Iraqi government with chemical weapons be sued.

Ahmed Abdallah, 75, a villager, said: "My nine children died in the attacks. I had six daughters and three sons. We want the company which supplied the gas to be prosecuted."

Plans to take legal action against the suppliers of chemicals used in the poison gas attacks are set to take place. Iraq's cabinet approved $6m for the financial costs to reconstruct Halabja late last week.

Ali al-Dabbagh, an Iraqi government spokesman, said Iraq had plans to seek compensation from companies and countries which supplied chemicals.

"We are also approaching the United Nations to declare March 16 as an international day against chemical arms," al-Dabbagh said in a statement.