CPTnet
22 June 2006

IRAQ: Azad's Story from Kurdistan

by Cathy Breen

[ Note: Breen's piece has been edited for length. The entire piece may be
found at http://www.cpt.org/iraq/feature.htm. Human Rights Watch issued a
report in 1993 about Hussein's genocide of the Kurds. It is available at
http://hrw.org/reports/1993/iraqanfal/ANFALINT.htm.]

A 20-year old nurse working at a surgical center during Saddam Hussein's
1987-89 extermination campaigns against the Kurds, Azad described how he had
to inject himself with atropine to counter the effects of nerve gas. The
health team had learned to do this speedily, injecting themselves through
their clothes. On 18 February 1988, Azad was listening to the Kurdish news
on radio when he saw seventeen Iraqi planes circling the area. They dropped
seventy-two rockets. He saw the white smoke from the explosions go up and
then descend. The bombing continued for approximately twenty minutes.
People began running to the surgical center, and staff had everyone submerge
themselves in the river near the center. The chemicals caused boils, burns
and death by inhalation. The medical staff made a mixture of lidocaine and
crystalline penicillin to put into their own and others' eyes. "Fortunately,
that day there was a very strong wind which helped take the gas away" said
Azad.

"Even the snakes were falling down from the ceiling. The sparrows, cows,
rabbits and sheep were all dying." He described how the cats and dogs, side
by side, were following the people out of the villages.

The chemical bombing did not resume in his area until almost a month later,
on 21 March. "We were having dinner--chick peas--" Azad said, surprising
himself that he remembered that detail. "We heard forty rockets to nearby
Sewsenan, about four kilometers distance from the surgical center. We went
outside to see the whole of Sewsenan afire. Two young people came running
toward the center. 'All of the people in Sewsenan are dead' they cried."

The next two nights, bombs fell over the villages of Takya, Beleja and the
surrounding areas at dinner time; the Iraqi military knew people would be at
home eating. "This time we had learned from the previous night to inject
ourselves immediately, "said Azad. They were also attacked by land, by tanks
that entered after the bombing took place. Their number was approximately
300 as they set out on their journey through a mountain passage into a more
protected valley. They ran out of bread, and for a week's time had only the
stem of a nettle-type plant to sustain them. Slowly people came from their
villages to join them, and their number grew to 600. In Askar they stayed
for about three days. They got bread from villagers and washed themselves
and their clothes before leaving to cross the Dukan river. Right after they
had crossed, Askar came under the chemical bombing. Although almost twenty
years have passed, Azad still expresses sadness at not having been able to
return to help the village's inhabitants. As our time was ending in
Kurdistan, Azad took us to the north on a four-hour trip. "This is where we
smelled the flowers" he said as we passed through a sloping open area.

"The Iraqi military had withdrawn for a moment. We said to each other that
we either die together or we cross the mountain together. It was nighttime
and very dark.

"We were 600 people moving in single file. Someone told me 'Doctor (they all
called me doctor), they need you in the front. We are smelling something
strange.'" When Azad got to the head of the line, he found what people were
afraid of. "It is safe," he said, "It is only flowers!"

"Imagine," he said to us, "people being afraid of the smell of flowers."