The Kurdish Village that Rose from the Dead

In the 1980s Kulajo gave unstinting support to the Kurdish resistance and for this its people were punished by Saddam Hussein. Villagers were transported to prison camps and many were later executed. Yet some lived to tell extraordinary stories of survival.

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‘Iraqi officers took our husbands, sons and fathers, and wouldn’t even let us say goodbye’

MAHROOB MOHAMMED NAWKHAS from Kulajo was told by Iraqi soldiers her family would be rehoused in a government collective town. Instead they took them to a prison camp.

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‘My brother begged for Allah’s help as policemen took him away’

Death was a constant threat for the Kurdish villagers held in detention camps during Anfal. FATIMA KHURSHEED MAHMOUD describes how many of her relatives, including her father and brother, never returned from Iraqi captivity.

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‘They had a nice, calm life but then Anfal was upon us’

Many men from Kulajo village joined the peshmerga and their families were punished for this by the Iraqi government. Relatives of OSMAN ALI AZIZ were transported to prison camps and others, including small children, were shot dead in execution pits.

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‘The prison guard said, “The wolf took your men”’

“Welcome to Hell” read the sign over the entrance to Nugra Salman, the Iraqi desert prison close to the border with Saudi Arabia. MIRIAM RASHID MAHMOUD remembers how starving children were beaten unconscious by the guards there.

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‘Who could have imagined the Iraqi government would shoot women and children dead?’

To protect their families, some Kurdish villagers joined militia known as “jash" and fought with the Iraqi army. It was often a difficult choice: RAUF AHMAD QADIR from Kulajo village joined a “jash" unit in Kalar and later learned many of his relatives had been arrested and executed in Iraqi captivity.

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