‘Caught in those blizzards, parents had no choice but to abandon their children’
Thinking they had reached safety in Iran, Kurdish villagers were again attacked with chemical weapons. JAWAHIR HASSAN AHMAD lost one of her five children when an Iranian refugee camp she was living in was gassed by Iraqi jets.
‘I come to the cemetery every day – it feels like I’m with them’
Chemical warfare deeply traumatised the rural communities of Kurdistan and the distress it caused still affects survivors. TAHA MOHAMMED AMIN describes how a bomb exploded outside his house in Sewsenan village and people began to die, a nightmare vision he relives every night in his dreams.
‘There’s a fire still burning inside me: my family died but I survived’
Yazidis who fought the government of Saddam Hussein were shown no mercy. ALI HAWER BAKO, a communist peshmerga, lost 27 of his extended family in the 1980s after they surrendered to the authorities.
‘The loss of my son is a never-ending pain because I wasn’t able to bury him’
The poison gas attack on the Balisan valley was a first for Saddam Hussein. Never before had chemical weapons been used by a state against its own people. NAJIBA KHADIR AHMED has vivid and painful memories of what happened.