‘After the bombing we noticed a terrible smell of burnt hair’
Balisan villagers refused to believe their own government would gas them. The decision to stay in his home after the attack almost cost ALI SHEIKH MUSTAFA his life.
‘Do you know what it’s like to lose a child? I can’t forget’
The death toll in Goptapa from chemical weapons was only exceeded by that of Halabja, which had been gassed seven weeks earlier. A witness to the Goptapa attack was MIRIAM YASEEN MOHAMMED who watched neighbours and relatives run for their lives and drop dead in village alleyways.
‘The Iraqi army showed no mercy to women, children nor the elderly’
The Iraqi army systematically attacked Kurdish villages in the Lesser Zab valley as part of Saddam's Anfal campaigns. ABDULRAHMAN ABDULLAH SALIH describes how he lost his entire family as a consequence and how this hardened his heart.
‘There were 30 of us on that tractor, all of us blind’
Sheikh Wasan village in the Balisan valley was bombed with chemicals a year before the gassing of Halabja. ADIBA AWLLA BAYIZA remembers how, blinded and in pain, she and her children were imprisoned in Erbil after the attack.
‘“You betrayed your nation,” I told Saddam Hussein at his trial’
During Saddam's trial in Baghdad, Kurdish Anfal survivors confronted the former Iraqi leader. One of them was MAHMOUD RASUL MUSTAFA, who last saw his wife, three sons and two daughters in a prison camp near Kirkuk.
‘Prisoners were forced to cover corpses with sand, yet the dogs dug them up’
Villagers from JALEMORT, located in the Lesser Zab valley, remember how they were attacked by the Iraqi army and then imprisoned in the southern deserts where many died.
‘My unborn baby died in Dibs prison: I carried him in my womb for a month afterwards’
JWAN ABDULKARIM JABAR of Mahabaram village says her heart is still broken after losing almost all her close relatives during Anfal.
‘The Iraqis used to say, “Even your donkeys are peshmerga”’
Those living in the rural areas of Kurdistan risked imprisonment for being suspected “saboteurs.” A farmer, HAMAD AMIN MOHAMMED was jailed for four years by Saddam's regime because he lived in the peshmerga stronghold of Haladin.
‘“I don’t care what happens to me,” my father said. “But no harm must befall these civilians”’
Peshmerga risked their lives to save fellow Kurds, and none were braver than than Hakim Rebwar. His son, HAWRAZ RAFIQ KARIM, explains how his father made the ultimate sacrifice to protect the women and children of his village.
