Part 8 – our supplies & food looted

 

The children were safe; no one got hurt beside the frantic moments some passersby noticed women and children sleeping under the RV.


Few chaotic noisy moments followed as more curious people came to ask what is the matter, most of us got out of the RV to see what’s going on outside, it was noisy as the mob of people surrounded our RV. Some kids woke up screaming and crying as they got out from under the car, some realizing their parents were gone and some were afraid due to strangers pulling them out from under the RV as they woke up from their sleep.


The yelling subsided as everyone yelled at my dad to move the car, the traffic begun to move, my dad was still shaken, he was too upset to drive, he got mad at the mob yelling and shouting orders at him. He drove a bit out of the way and parked the RV and let traffic move.


We were scared to ask him to please drive; he was angry!


He walked away from the RV climbed a small hill hear by. We started to cry and wondered what was he doing? People kept passing us walking, on horsebacks, by cars and carts dragging elderly people and/or their belongings. My dad just stood there up that hill. No one approached him for few long agonizing minutes…


It was moments before the sun come up, the cloud cleared and it was getting brighter but it was still muddy and cold.


A young man neighbor of ours who was in our RV summed up the courage and went up the hill to speak to our father to carry on; we all looked on and watched the frustration on our dad, talking and pointing at the car and pointing at himself and rubbing his face. We knew later that he was shaken up by the thought of him unintentionally killing those women and children who took refuge from the storm underneath.


He came down and inspected the cart the RV was hauling, it contained food and cooking necessities and big bags of rice, sugar, beans, flour, cans of cooking oil, gasoline for the RV etc., he was furious to see the food and most supplies and gas was stolen, and the tarp he used to cover everything was gone, possibly for people shielding themselves from the storm.


The big bag of rice and bean was bloated and expanded from rain water. It was all ruined and wasted away, we lost over a week worth of food and supplies due to looting. The cart had nothing left in it but the over bloated bag of rice and beans with soaked blankets. Dad was furious and refused to move the RV, he wanted us all to get out of the RV to assess what we have to survive inside the RV, plus our brother needed his wound dressing changed.  We wondered outside with people still rushing by us… our mother with the other ladies passed food around as we stood out in the cold.


Then the shouting begun from all around us, almost like waves or words from the back of the crowed all the way passed us, ‘the army is closing in on us, move, move, the helicopters are coming, the army is in our town already’.


We looked behind us, we saw in the distance as the crisp sunlight came up in the horizon, we saw black smoke in the distance, the echo of the bombing was very faint but it was there… it was scary.
The cars started rushing and honking, the people who camped on the ground to rest, sleep or eat, packed everything up and started walking.


One by one we got into the RV, it took a long time, very long time to merge that giant RV back into the rush of cars, no one would give us room. Not an inch until few men from our RV got out and yelled at the people and the drivers to let us into the road, (For God’s sake, let us merge, we have a wounded man and we need to get in. he might die if we don’t get into the Red Cross, let us in!)
With few hesitant driver and ugly words exchange, we managed to get back into traffic. We all breathed a sigh of relief, and we moved on.



As we passed, we saw a young woman with few children begging, pleading with people passing by to help her burry her deceased father. No one could help her, we passed her as she carried on begging people. We kept driving.
We passed by a family begging for help, their child died and they want help burry the child… we kept driving.
We passed by a man yelling and angry at people, with toddler and young child in his hand, begging, ‘please please help me, my wife in going into labor, pleaes, can you please help me. Please!’. We kept driving. The sounds of bombs in the distance made people rush even faster.
We passed by children crying and calling out for their parents, parents shouting out their children names; it was all heart breaking but we kept driving.
Cars breaking down in the middle of the road or run out of gas, left in the road and the people carried on.

this is a photo of one of the many graves of the people that died during the mass refugees escape in 1991, photo was later taken in 1992 with UNHCR & UN Guards helping in Kurdistan

Part 7 – the wounded brother

 

Long before the sun comes up the first morning after we escaped, I opened my eye, my aching body hurt as I tried to move it in that confined space under the passenger seat of the RV. 

I looked at the driver seat, I see my dad sleeping in a very awkward position with his glasses still on his face in a crooked way. I hear everyone in that RV asleep but every inch of movement stirred up whimpering, aching, or a complain of one sleeper discomforting another… Few painful moans mainly came from our brother who was in tremendous pain… Any bump near his body makes him shout in pain.


His body was ravaged by that tank shell that exploded just short meters off of him that even his face was covered with black spots.. Shrapnel pieces still impeded in his legs, from the bottom of his foot to his hip.

He lost chunk of his buttocks and his small toe. He lost a lot of blood and beside the pain he was in, he was at risk of contacting flesh eating bacteria that he may loose all his leg or worse, his life.
He was in a lot of pain and was in need of medical attention, stay at a hospital for few weeks.


That thought terrified our dad and he was determined to get him to the nearest possible medical help, since leaving his son at the local hospital was not an option… He was an injured fighter who not only deserted the Iraqi Army but also fought with the Kurdish fighters against the Iraqi Army. Each of those reasons could get him executed by the retaliating army that was sweeping through and forcibly  gaining power back from all the liberated zones in northern Iraq (Kurdistan) with the use of his army, his tanks, jet fighters and helicopters. The rumor of the notorious ‘Republican Army’ was also deployed at front lines scared us to death.


Those men in the Republican Army were viciously trained, with no mercy on their heart. I remember as a school girl taken to large spectating national events to watch displays of the army, the solders, the tanks roaring through the big field: one of the displayed traumatized me as I was very young along with my school friends we were shown a group of men, they called them (The Republican Army, Special Forces) El-Harras El-Jamhoory, Qua’at Kh’assa الحرس الجمهوري، قوات خاصة
The display of about 6-8 men, dressed in black were put in the front and center of the huge track field, they closed all the gates and announced for all of us to see those men’s strength, agility and ‘bravery’ as they call it.


The announcer got the men to show the crowed some fighting skills. They released 2 rabbits into the field, a black one and a spotted black and white one.
The crowed started to cheer loudly as those men scattered and with amazing incredible speed, captured a fast running rabbit, they captured it and within seconds the second one was captured… They ripped the rabbits alive, tore both into pieces with their bare hands and chews it’s flesh, threw the carcass into the ground and stood in line and saluted the leader who was sitting there above us…
Saddam Hussein then stood up, and saluted them back, the entire arena erupted with cheers for the ‘brave’ men. I keep looking at the blood all over the dirt track field and what’s left of the two rabbits. My friends and I cried but our teacher ordered us to start chanting cheers and clap -to also stop crying.


With that image of the Republican Guards in my mind and with the news of the terror they’re inflicting on the people who were left behind I was scared .. My wondering mind was awaken by the shouting and honking of the cars behind us, the traffic begun to move and my dad was shaken from his seat.

I saw him frantically start the car while rubbing his sleepy eyes… The engine of the car started, he shifted the gears and just about to start moving an inch before the screaming people yelled and yelled at my dad to STOP THE CAR, hitting the RV with their hands… STOP THE CAR!
There were children sleeping under our RV. 

Part 6 – 35 people living in 3 person RV

 

The night got darker and darker but the rush of people speaking as they pass our car was very clear that they were determined to reach the borders and be as far and safe away from the army that is at our tail…

It started to rain, the traffic stopped completely… for a long period of time, we didn’t move an inch… the rain and the hail begun and continued… it was cold and muddy and very wet outside, the traffic stopped but may people kept walking, we could hear from the darkness the voices of men shouting at their family to keep moving, .. we heard children moaning and crying and protesting that they can’t walk any longer, they were begging their father to stop.
‘please stop’ they would cry, ‘take us home, Baba’

I couldn’t see them… but I hear them as if they were inside the car.

The rain got heavier as the thunder, lightning and hail came along.

we can hear the hail falling like rocks on the roof of the RV…

Some of them tried tirelessly knocking on our doors and windows to let them in, ‘please, just take out children, its cold and muddy, they will die out here, please let our children be inside please’
it was painful for my father to -at some points, tearfully apologizing to them they he can’t, if he have room he would..

 He welcomed few men to enter to believe with their own eyes that there was no room for a single extra person in that RV.

He would tell them, this is designated to accommodate 3 adults, but see, there are 35 people here including an elderly blind woman and a severely injured young man.

 Please understand, I can not accommodate anyone here, please understand, I am really sorry.


….((( forgive me folks, this is very emotionally hard for me to recall & relive… allowe me some time, and I will continue))

Part 5 – This is not happening

 

‘this is not happening!’

‘this is not happening!’

I kept whispering as we were all put into the RV… A neighboring family joined us… It was so hard to move about inside… It was so tight, my dad kept shouting at us not to bother grandmother and our injured brother.

As the wheels of the RV rolled out oh so slowly of of the driveway, I was standing at the back sitting partially on the small sink… In the small back window I glanced at our house wondering if we would ever be back home again… Then beyond my control my voice kept whispering, ‘this is not happening!’

I wished all the noise in the car would stop, I wished my grandmother stop shouting and protesting, I wish my siblings stop fidgeting and arguing about who sits where… I wished my brother wasn’t hurt, so we could have more room to sit, I wished we didn’t allow more people into our RV, I wished I had room to sit my bottom down… I wished my dad would stop yelling at us..

Most of all I wished my dad would just stop the car and take us home, I wished the army would miraculously stop in their tracks and declare peace.



I felt my body shiver as my eyes wide open, I gasped the moment the RV turned into the main street, there were literally thousands upon thousands of cars and people flooding through the streets all heading in two direction… Out of the city, heading east towards Iran borders or north to Turkey borders.

I was not the only one gasping, everyone in the car did too, my mom begun to sob out loud, the rest of us begun to cry out loud, some of us cursing and saying very bad word about Saddam Hussein and his regime…

Thousands of people men, women, children walking or being carried by parents all around us, young and old, some were so old they are carried by stretchers… Wounded people with bandaged heads and arms or chest or on crutches all walking… At all times it looked like cars were on the streets but you could not see the road… You could not see the ground for km after km… It was covered with people!
Waves upon waves of people surrounding our RV as my dad very slowly drove through the streets… The road that led into the first highway out of the city of Sulimanyah used to take us 10minutes…on that faithful night it took us about 4-5 hours… As the night came over us, the people kept walking non stop…



If I can forget all what I been through during that ordeal, the one thing I can never forget is the first cry of mother searching for her child who got lost in the crowd, then another mother started shouting her child’s name, then a father yelling his son’s name,….. The voices of parents and sibling crying and calling out the names of missing child(ren), sounds that pierced my heart in ways I can never forget…

The shouting kept on and on, with people knocking on our RV doors and windows begging us to allow them in or take their children inside…

I remember a man begging to climb over top of our car to get a view of the crowed in hopes to see his missing child… My dad wouldn’t allow him because the traffic was moving and he was didn’t want to be left behind nor he wanted anyone on the roof in case they fall and hurt of if they break the roof it would be disastrous…

The crying of people searching in the dark for the babes was excruciating and painful… I eventually fell asleep with my ears tightly covered by my hands.

I slept in the space under the dashboard of the passenger seat with my knees to my chin. I was 19 years old.

Part 4 – Leaving it all behind

 

;

The fear and tension begun to build up till we could hide no more, the government and its powerful troops from the ground and air got stronger and crept closer and closer.. the Mujahideen Khalq (The anti Iran fighters/mercenaries) fought along side the Saddam army helping them regain the control of all the liberated zones in Erbil, Dahook, Sulimanyah and outskirt of Kerkuk that was fiercely fought and Kurdish fighters retreated as they could fight that force no longer…

the news spread like wild fires from mouth to mouth from one house to another …. we heard of terrors the army was inflicting on anyone they encounter in the liberated zone, the blood was in the streets as the army crept close and closer, we heard of entire hospital gutted in flame with people in it.
we heard of helicopters shooting and long long grid-lock of traffic of people trying to escape the fight… we heard even life stocks were not spared.

the mounting fear of the immanent death we will face if we stayed at home could contain us no more; street begun to fill with people carrying whatever they can and their kids and some even their animals, hear east to the Iranian borders or North to the Turkish borders…
…..
my father came home with my wounded brother with a bag of medical supplies that would help with his dressing change of his massive leg injury.
in the RV, my brother lay there with his leg stretched,  my dad got my mother that afternoon to stuff every covered cupboard with food necessity and cooking utensils etc.
he got all of us to pack on small bag of personal belongings, one small school size bag, we were prepared to leave and never return, that was the impression.

I cried, I cried and shook as I contemplated what to take and what to leave behind…. it was very scary to consider to stay just as scary is to leave it all behind… scarier even to think that we may not be able to run fast enough to stay alive. can’t give up, must pack, must go.

before the midnight hour of April 1, 1991 we begun to fill the RV with our needed items and my dad was rushing us to put our stuff in the car, he was angry when some of us wanted to bring dolls or toys or books or extra shoes or even our music Walkman… he yelled at us, ‘we may not be able to make it out there… just bring items that we need to survive, clothes, hygiene items  medicine and food’
some of my younger sister I remember screamed and cried as my dad took their stuffy and their bag full of toys and carried them into the car, warning us ‘watch out for your brother, he’s badly hurt and need all the space you can give him, lets protect him’

my grandmother at that time was in her late 80s she was unwell, begun to loose her sight and the dementia symptoms were clearly affecting her and her mood.

she was very confused and angry and kept yelling at my dad to take her back to her house in Baghdad. she yelled, ‘let me talk to Saddam, am sure he will listen to reasons, let me talk to the solders, they will listen to old lady, they know who I am, they will let us all go home’
oh, Grandma, she kept conversing and trying to convince my dad that she did not want to go. she hated being stuck in the same tight space with the noisy kids (she called us BUGS) ‘Ooohhhh hasharaaaat’ in Arabic it means bugs.

she was put into the RV in a small corner with her precious purse and her little travel bag and he blanket. she was so angry and I remember hearing her cry, tears from her eyes as she whispered ‘if I can only see, I will find my way home, I do not want to be here’

we had our two fragile individuals in the RV and dad yelled and he got us all in one by one by one, yelling at my mother to stop cleaning the kitchen, ‘stop cleaning, they army may demolish our house when they come… now hurry, get in the car!’

my mother trying to wipe away her tears and pretend she’s not crying, she said ‘maybe if they see a clean house, they might not demolish it’

‘what would they think of the woman of the house when they come here?’ she mumbled and complained as she entered the car, she would not let my dad shut the door as she out loud called each and every one of us by name, ‘Lena? where are you, Shereen?, Amin are you here? Nasreen, Roxanne, Lozan are you all here? I see Dalan? are you ok Dalan, Akeen ? where is Akeen? is she in her uncle’s car? ok! Fairuz good you are here, where is your son ‘Kamal’ where is he?   oh, there in driver seat,,, (Fairuz’ son 1st birthday was April 2 1991)

My mother got inside the car with her face white and she was terrified of what was going to take place…



There were few relatives with us, also 3 cars followed us. one was carrying my sister.
we drove off with neighbors frantically clinging to the car begging to be taken in the RV with us; we had 35 people in the RV as we drove out of our street on that fateful dark night.

*the photo is from the inside of our house in Sulimanayah… taken in summer 1992 (1 of my sisters is not in this photo), I am the one with my hand under my chin.

Part 3 – Sweet Reprieve

 

We celebrated the Kurdish New Year on March 21, 1991 (NewRooz) for the first time ever in freedom. there were dancing in the streets, chanting freedom songs and cheers, feast, happiness all around the city. happiness I have never felt in my life… it was the kind that made the cheeks hurt from non stop smiling…



despite the celebration we knew the worst was yet to come. we knew such powerful government with an iron fist leader can not give up so soon, but as the news spread of the Allied Forces leaving Iraq territories… we couldn’t believe it, we heard the President of the USA, The Commander in Chief saying to us, raise up against your leader.
to us, this meant ‘we go your back’ get up and fight.
but to our dismay, the government detoured it’s powerful army, what’s left of it straight towards the liberated Kurdish cities …
it became so scary we could hear it, smell it and feel it in our chest… it was terrifying… from the distance, we hear the bombing …. the news got worse and worse from the radio…

My eldest brother was in the military base situated on the outskirts of northern Baghdad, he was in the army since he turned 19, in 1989 it was a mandatory for all able men to do so.

My dad pulled one of his scariest stunts ever on the intense first hours of the Desert Storm war, he drove the RV into the military base, with bombs exploding and anti aircraft guns going nonstop overhead. It was night, my brother was operating the radar.
My dad shouted his name, called him into the RV and drove out of that base.
That was a crime punishable by immediate execution the moment he’s found, on the spot.
My dad was determine, he had that intense feeling that it’s a lost war and the government will fall. There is no way he’s sacrificing his son for a mad man (Saddam Hussein). My dad hid my brother under the couch of that rv as he drove back to Sulimany bringing his son home alive.

Numerous military check points stopped my dad and twice the entire rv was searched. They couldn’t find my brother.
When he arrived home my mom passed out on the floor from pure joy of seeing her son and the terror of what will happen to him if /when the government finds out..
After the uprising and the celebration, my brother volunteer to fight alongside of the Kurdish fighters.

He was ambushed near the city of Kerkuk by the Mujahedee khalq.
A tank shell exploded beside him … He was barely alive as his fellow fighters pulled him out of danger.

After surgeries and few units of blood, he gradually started to get better but my dad pulled him out of the hospital with the rest of us into that rv, on April 1 in the late late hours of the night, we escaped next to millions.. Escaping a brutal army of Saddam Hussein…. His army was regaining powers back to control the region the Kurds have liberated.

Part 2 – The Red Building fall

 

 

After long nights in the dark and the fear of dying from the fierce fights that was raged on for the past few days between the Kurdish fighters (Pesh Margah) and the government of Saddam Hussein in early March 1991, there was loud shouts of victory.
we emerged out of our basement after the men in the house investigated outside and made sure it was safe to be out… it was early in the evening… the triumphant joyful shouts and cheers of many was so loud we could hear it form all around the city of Sulimany.
some ran and cheered to make sure everyone knew, the government fell. Some sang and danced, some shot bullets up in the air in a celebratory way. Some congratulated people and some even erupted in loud cries remembering their loved ones that were killed in the hand of the government. I was just giggling … giggling and laughing out loud in disbelief that such powerful military government can fall in the hands of Kurdish fighters who’s been mercilessly and systematically killed in the hands of Saddam and his thugs, in the name of Baa’th Party.

The disbelief of all of us and loud laughter turned into tears, we cried and looked at each other, hugged and laughed while crying and some of us hurried to dress up and wear shoes & go out in to the city and see how our city looked without the government.

The fear-stricken town and its people were in fear no more. All we feared was stray bullet falling from the sky from all those celebratory shots up in the air…

We hugged random people and congratulated each other as we walked the 2 blocks towards the infamous police station/ intelligence headquarters.

We continue to laugh, cry and say ‘I can’t believe this is happening’ as we approach the brave Kurdish fighters, some of them where being treated on the side of the road for wounds etc., we thank them and ask them to reassure us, ‘did the Baa’th really fall?’
they answer ‘yes, those cowards are gone … ((Bezzhee Bezhee Kurdistan)) –Long live, Long live Kurdistan))

That continued until that (Red Building) came to our full view. It was terrifying from there on. Every step we took it got uglier and uglier. The smell of burning rubber, papers, wood and flesh was in the air. Smoke was coming from the building and some rooms were still engulfed in fire but people were so hysterical of the fact that the government fell, they were entering the building to see with their own eyes what’s inside.

Besides, some where there for the looting; some –like us where there for the sheer curiosity of what was behind those walls.

There were dead bodies of men dressed in green Baa’th party uniforms with their blood trailing more than a block down the street, some were burned and some just got shot before our eyes are they pleaded with the mobs who were chanting celebratory cheers & pointing guns at anyone in uniform.

It was horrible… some men were in military uniforms… some were strangely in pajamas. We were told they fought for the past few days non-stop that’s why they not even dressed.

I saw with my own eyes, execution chambers, crematorium inside that building, torturing rooms, prisons as small as walk in showers –inside it, a bucket for toilet, portable cabins with beds and camera installed at the other end of the room, ripped clothes of women and even little girls underwear, women prison with walls covered with words of desperate women writing their last ever written words. Desperate sad, scary words….

The days the followed, were happy filled with celebrations but mounting fear became real as the regime gathered his army and was heading straight towards our town. Armed with jet fighters, helicopters, tanks and strong army that was pulled from the Kuwait borders.

Also the (Mujahedeen Khalqu) the Anti-Iranian fighters who were being harbored by Saddam’s government were utilized by our desperate leader to fight alongside the army to gain power of the northern Iraq.

The threat became stronger and stronger as the Allied Forces backed out of Iraq and left us to fend for ourselves.