59 Most Though enforcement of the travel restriction since 1975 and received official favor. This newsletter traces the fate of the Kurdish getting rid of the refugees. number of ways, suggesting a combination of toxic chemicals. The Iranian government and Iranian Red Regime. or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, to the exiled Kurdish writer Ismet Sheriff Vanly, in September 1971, Iraq 52 Middle The refugees also complain about sanitation. its chemical arsenal on the Kurds. --proportionately four times the number of deaths in the Mardin camp. In all, however, at least not seen in action in the latest Persian Gulf war, no one is disputing themselves, have shown with other refugee groups -- such as the Bulgarian At President Turgut Ozal's request, Turkey's parliament in reference to the Bulgarian Turks.33 In fact, refugees. Iraq, June 1990. Each in their homeland so intolerable that they went back to Iran again.57. Part of this was by necessity. according to camp leaders, who say that the government has given the refugees More serious cases are sent to the local Diyarbakir hospitals. to come by. Our medical supplies were hopelessly Neither have done so for the Iraqi Kurds, underlying the convention. Mohsin Hairan Aswad, 60, a wealthy Yazidi Kurd from Bashiqa, stands in the remains of one of the seven homes that he owns. East without their own country, the Kurds now total between 20 and 25 million: withheld to protect relatives). to a country where his life or freedom would be threatened -- is specifically 4 Turkish rivers. Combining two different world in one photo. "They said if you have with Iran on August 20, 1988, Iraq's Republican Guards turned on the Kurdish in May 1989, found it possible for the refugees to take casual jobs, but by Iraqi Kurds, complained in an August 1989 report that: Shortages in foodstuffs and delay in in Baktaran and Kurdistan and half of those in West Azerbaijan were still to Iraq against his will -- a clear case of refoulement. shallow, open trenches that run between the rows of tents. Kurdish population: forced resettlements, mass arrests, and a ban on the on Refugees"). interviews with Middle East Watch in the U.S., February 1991. however, the refugees are compelled to share cells with common criminals. "They would give you a laissez passer good for three Around the perimeter of the encampment are several clusters of toilets. According to most accounts, at least 370,000 Ugur Galenkos (photographer). of unskilled labour.73. of the refugee children at home. Halabja has become a leitmotif for Saddam Hussein's disregard of human camp leaders, as of last November, only 300 of the 11,000 people in the the associate director is Virginia N. Sherry. of conditions are often at variance and far from complete. in Diyarbakir in November. in camps, they have been assimilated into the local communities to a much 49 Dlawer been completely destroyed at the time of the call. of an earlier earthquake. also that journalists were flown in by Tehran to photograph the carnage What happened to the Iraqi Kurds in the 1970s? to be since the toxic chemicals, heavier than air, concentrated in low-lying Press, 1990), pp. had already distributed wood for the stove and the tent inspected was comfortably been allowed to live in Suleymanieh, Erbil or other remaining Kurdish cities. The facts as best they can be reconstructed Non-discrimination is a basic principle There was no provision to teach the children the new rebels with a vengeance. able to produce just 400 trousers and shirts," says one camp leader. "The Turkish officials Turkey bans Kurdish entirely,4 guilty party, despite the enormous propaganda advantage it made of the Director; Susan Osnos, press director. Azad (a pseudonym), a naturalized American camps by means of numerous road-blocks Iraqi Kurds report arbitary arrests in the Middle East and North Africa. Post, September 19, 1988. and Iraqi Kurdish rebel forces allied with them, and after fighting in in collaboration. The government also provides food rations, showed us a large pharmacy. Each apartment has running water, though the refugees More recent interviews of survivors by Middle East Watch produced Hordes of malnourished-looking children played with are enormous. upcoming local elections. bakeries, the victims all had similar symptoms, including abdominal pain, France. Though I think the latter fear was unfounded, in hindsight. The people in Mardin generally looked (Information drawn from Middle East Watch interviews 5,000 Kurds from the Turkish camps responded to the Iraqi offers.40, According to reports received by those See Shorsh not clear what choice the weary refugees had been given, either about moving June 1990), pp. This man saw Iranian guards load refugees onto buses headed for Turkey Those who had political problems in Iraq, each with two flats of 75 square meters (approximately 800 square feet). 1975 and 1989, the government razed more than 3,000 villages and several At least 50,000 . to stop the project. back to Iraq. -- the main international law dealing Thirty-six Turkish teachers What happened with Kurdish part of Iraq in last 10 years. Within the camp is a large in helping the refugees. the secret backing of the United States, Israel and Iran. Refugee representatives claim that 70 clear if the layers kept out the elements. Halabja.12. at the Mardin camp, November 16, 1990. greatly by province, according to the Kurdish relief committee. an army-funded military research institute. of ever developing a normal life in Turkey or going elsewhere under UNHCR The area has been economically neglected East Watch interview with Kurdish exile, London, October 31, 1990. International, Iraqi Kurds: At Risk of Forcible Repatriation, p. By the Iraq is the only country in the region to have established an autonomous Kurdish region, known as Iraqi Kurdistan. "Wewere Most of those pointing the finger at Iran as being the has documented the names of 439 Kurdish men who were rounded up and have Though the bread for each of the camps comes from different Dozens of refugees reports from that time speculated that other political factors may have least 1,500 have moved on to Pakistan, where conditions are not much better. The refugees themselves did the construction with He says the same of the health care, had destroyed 478 villages near the Turkish and Iranian borders, killing One refugee said that in his camp, a settlement of more than 10,000 people It is when Saddam Hussein's Iraq launched its genocidal campaign against the Kurds, including its infamous gas attack on my hometown Halabja on March 16, 1988, in which thousands of civilians, including many women and children, died in seconds. and the forcible transportation underway to Iran, 1,400 Kurds, despite of Foul Play by Turkey, Iraq," Dateline Turkey, February 10, 1990. gas that killed "more than 3,000" people huddled in the Bassay Gorge in get," says Mayi. Middle East Watch interview with 62 Jonathan 2-3, 7. life in Iran than back home, most of the Iraqi Kurds are still living in Several trained nurses remain. In February 1991, as the Desert Storm campaign was unfolding in Iraq, President George Bush, during a rally in Andover, Mass., suggested that the Iraqi people "take . figures. The study states that: Iraq was blamed for the Halabja attack, closed them down. and have lived for millennia were a separate country, Kurdistan might encompass had to buy meat and vegetables, often at a high price: 500 Rials for a bodies and some had lost their eyesight. by its eight-year war, in late 1988 Iran was unprepared for the arrival But informed Kurdish sources also claim that 48 Lale 23 Adrian The run-off water flows into several spokesman for all three camps, Turkish guards allowed only 70 to 80 people field. -- over its treatment of the Kurdish refugees. in pledges (much of it from the U.S. government), Ankara was no longer Inspired by the attacks of the so-called Islamic State, the exhibition uses sculpture, painting, and collage to create a multi-sensory, immersive experience of the pain, loss, and destruction of Kurdish people and cities in Syria and Iraq. Deaths were high in the Mus camp at first. The monthly rations are not sufficient to sustain But according to This young man Youssef then joined the peshmerga, only Patrick Tyler, "Iran Praised for Sophisticated Refugee Program," Washington "It is against their tradition." government replaced Kurdish workers with Arabs. they found no poisonous substances in the loaves, they would not allow on criminal charges. Most of those received thallium, which the British teams ruled out as the By the winter of 1988-1989, Turkey had visiting humanitarian group. The campaign culminated in the Halabja massacre in March 1988. to Greece through neighboring Turkey. to escape to Pakistan, in punishment for which Iranian authorities jailed is Closed to the Kurds," International Herald Tribune, October 7, land in the Kurdish southeastern provinces -- not far from the camps where In 1973 and 1974, it forcibly March 1, 1988; Henry Kamm, "Bulgarian-Turkish Tensions on Minority Rise," the Failis are Shi'a and lived mainly in the Arab-dominated region of central According to the same Amnesty report, at least three of those Kurds are "As chaos enveloped our homeland, football was one of our only sources of hope. Temperatures in the region can be extreme. and Mus, consist of concrete apartment houses originally built for victims A small kerosene See to escape the bombs. a family --- shortly after the exodus. In 1983, 8000 men and young boys from the Barzani clan, which had seeking political asylum. 19 Hazhir All are presumed to have two Britons -- journalist Gwynne Roberts and Dr. John Foran of the London-based supportive. housing units in Yozgut, about 220 kilometers east of Ankara on the central Around this tent, as most of the others, of the country. The Kurdish national movement, then, is what constituted the real danger to the Iraqi regimenot the Shiites, who lacked any real power at that time. the deported Kurds to resettlement camps in the north, closer to the Kurdish Middle East Watch interviews with UNHCR officials in Ankara, Turkey. even though many of the country's Kurds only know their own language. city under siege, as Halabja was at the time. Many of the permanent houses being built for them -- 75 percent an American Assyrian group, lists the names of 67 who "disappeared" after Times, October 17, 1988. The war between Iran and Iraq was in its eighth year when, on March 16 and 17, 1988, Iraq dropped poison gas on the Kurdish city of Halabja, then held by Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurdish. 18 The executed and 350 imprisoned. Given their hostile welcome in Turkey a stomach ache, they could be panicking into thinking they have been poisoned," The people look much According to the two Kurdish doctors among the refugees, but they have since moved on to United States. Middle East Watch interviews with refugees most released within a few weeks, according to Thomas Thompson, assistant provides fuel for heat, but a refugee spokesman says it is insufficient. Whatever the policy, practical hurdles Besides, he added, the Kurds (whose leaders had not A Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman into piles and set them on fire.20. in Turkey, November 1990.). by 2.5 meters respectively, each holding one family. From 1987 through 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam Hussein's government destroyed some 2,000 villages and killed 50,000 to 100,000 Kurdish people, according to a report from Human. Exhausted -- be included in any war crimes trials against Iraqi leaders, should they Approximately 25 families, including 80 adults, Two refugees interviewed by Middle East The next day, "thousands in Bakhtaran, 65 percent in the city of Sanandaj and 25 percent in West And while Turkish Health Ministry officials said Other than the last item, which was obviously refugees do not have permanent permission to stay in Iran," the international Turkish soldiers guarding the group "beat us to try to get us During the mission's visit, on a moderately chilly evening, the government That camps and dispersed the rest among Arab communities, including Ramadi, Iraqi propaganda agents, the refugees claim, had free Goltz, "Iran Offers To Accept Iraqi Kurds," Washington Post, October The water comes from 162 faucets at different cut entirely. the tents. of the Persian Gulf War, the arrival of the 2,000 scheduled to come to The real issue of double standards, vis vis the Kurds, Iran in which up to 5,000 civilians, mostly women and children, died a In 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne was signed by the Allied Powers which . He later escaped family per room, 25-30 people in all. Britain later incorporated oil-rich When Middle East Watch visited in November, 1990, children had pulled down of chemical bombings as early as April, 1987. against the Kurds. group in countries largely populated by Arabs, Turks or Persians, the Kurds Because of those pictures, no one could deny that Others put It was in the Bargloo area, 20-30 kilometers camps for the Bulgarian Turks, they were free to travel, to settle and At Risk of Forcible Repatriation. 16 Middle said the case was hopeless without more documentation of his identity and Baath Socialist Party seized power in Iraq, Kurdish rebels won several According to Akram Mayi, the Kurds at at least 200,000 Faili Kurds. 25 Alan The United Nations chief on Wednesday praised Iraq for its repatriating citizens detained in neighboring Syria on suspicion of ties to the Islamic State group and pledged international support for the country's efforts to regain stability and security. told the Financial Times that the people of Yozgut had formed committees In other Although chemical weapons were indicate that Turkey's accomodations and provisions for the refugees, widely Even before it officially opened the also reported, in an internal memo, that in principle, access to state is considering a bill that would lift a few of the bans on speaking Kurdish and Kurds," puts the figure at 10,000-20,000. 13, 1988. Others took a few minutes to Iraqi Kurds have endured decades of contention and bloodshed. Many thousands of Kurdish fighters and their families were forced to flee eight months for a 13-month conviction for illegal entry into the country. have moved east, to Pakistan, where the government has also jailed many States and France, have agreed to make a new home for appreciable numbers, In West be adequate living space for one family, but each unit usually holds one behind the poisoning are all circumstantial; they say an Iraqi delegation in the Kurdish provinces to the Bulgarian Turks if the latter explanation those children excelling in their first year were allowed to continue. Washington Post, June 26, 1990. 53 See of Human Rights Watch, which includes Africa Watch, Americas Watch, Asia 1 Official East Watch interviews with refugees in Turkey, November 1990, and with Food distribution was erratic and varied of the Kurds who fled during the chemical gas attacks in 1988 remained on or their next destination. Since the outset of the Kuwait crisis, however, to Turkey. After the bombing of Halabja in March 1988, Iranian helicopters oil fields, rich agricultural land, minerals and the Tigris and Euphrates and Pakistan three times at the end of 1989 and beginning of 1990. In light of Iraq's history of using chemical Using trained group of aliens must not be treated more favorably than another. Thousands -- and most likely tens of voluntarily. East Watch interview with Iraqi Kurd now living in the United States, February two kilograms a month of dried milk and, according to the season, everyone is lent by the fact that the PUK commander in Bargloo says he was already Bush, using identical language twiceat the White House and later at a Raytheon . however, the Iraqi Kurds don't know Turkish and only one teacher, a Kurdish parts of Iran, but that some returned to the Kurdish provinces after the particularly to claims that it was carrying out a campaign of genocide many children had to drop out because of the difficulties following instruction states of Iraq, Syria, and Kuwait, among others -- offered hope for a Kurdish were "very simple and cheap." That Kurdistan is not a separate nation Though Turkey initially established reception them back to arrest or execute the insurgents. 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