The Forgotten Faylee Kurds of Iraq: A Personal Account
by Ms Zara Mohammed
'At midnight in October 1981, as part of a large-scale operation against many hundreds of Faylee Kurds, my house was stormed by armed Iraqi security forces who forced their way into our bedrooms and dragged us out of our beds. They then searched the house and looted every valuable they came across and said that everything belonged to the government now. We were then body searched and had our names checked on a list. We were then rushed into cars, which drove us to a local security office where males were then separated from females for questioning. The next morning, we were driven to the main security headquarters. That was the last time we saw my brother, in October 1981. At the main security headquarters, we were interrogated in great depth; they took every possible detail about us.
"During interrogation, an officer took me to a small room where all around the walls and floor, it was covered with blood. The weird thing was the ceiling was metal. He then pressed the button outside the door and the metal ceiling came down. I screamed and ran as fast as I could out of the room while he laughed. After this, he pushed me into another room where it was packed with naked women of all ages and a few children; some of them were weeping, some staring in the blank air, some were bruised up and had blooded faces and bodies. It was very obvious that they were beaten up and sexually violated and raped. While I was in that room, I became hysterical but a fellow detainee told me to calm down and told me that protesting with these human beasts would not change a thing. Outside the room, they were saying, "tonight we can have a nice party, we have new virgin" while laughing and joking about our terror. Thankfully, my father begged them to let me out and not to harm me and they did let me out. All the other women were left behind in that terrible state.
"We were then brought to another prison where we were all put in a big hall that had 1000 people. The place was very crowded and depressing. There was no sanitation, the floor was wet and unbelievably dirty and all around me were miserable people with dirty clothes on. All around, children looked so sick, weak and hungry and were in their last hours and indeed many of them did pass away. Words cannot describe those scenes. Dead bodies were left to rot among us for a few days before being removed.
"After a month in this prison, we were transported to the border with Iran and told to make our way there. This was the most horrifying journey of my life, in the remote wild terrains with extreme weather conditions, walking amongst a battleground where a savage war between Iran and Iraq was going on. We walked for 4 full days and 3 nights, with little clothing on, no water nor food. A lot of us who were weak could not make it and gave up along the way. During this journey, we also encountered a minefield and I witnessed a woman torn into pieces when she stepped on a mine. Panic and hysteria struck us; everyone thought that they were going to be next. Finally three days later, we reached the Iranian border where we were put into camps for about four weeks.
"Still now, my cousin Mr. Omran is in prison along with 6,500 young Kurds. He was imprisoned during the 1981 deportation campaign despite the fact that he was briefly released from a presidential pardon decree. Before that, he spent 2 years in prison, accused of taking bribes from foreign companies when he used to be among official delegates on business trips to Europe and for their affiliation with the Kurdish Democratic Party. In prison, three of his colleagues signed a confession and were hanged. During his time in prison, my cousin was subjected to torture, which included him being hung upside down from ceilings for long periods while being beaten, deprived of sleep by various methods such as cold water treatments, electrocution of sensitive body parts, hanging of him to the ceilings from the shoulder for long periods and whipping under foot with sticks to the point that you are not able to stand or walk anymore. He lost sight in an eye due to all the torture.
I have lost four brothers in 1981, together with eight cousins and other relatives. The trauma still affects my life. My life has become miserable and still has its toll on my own family and kids."
Ms Mohammed, like many Faylee Kurds, now hopes to obtain a measure of justice for the atrocities committed during Saddam's regime.
