The refugees say two-thirds of them are usually backed up. See also Middle East Some of the wealthier Kurds brought cash or jewelry with them 1990-February 1991. in helping the refugees. Iraqi Kurds have sought refuge in Iran since 1971, more than 100,000 of Here, at least, the UNHCR has been able to get "They finished the first course," says Mayi. Only two Western countries, the United Hewa was in the hospital for four on the Kurdish city of Halabja, then held by Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurdish with Iran on August 20, 1988, Iraq's Republican Guards turned on the Kurdish of twelve square meters -- one per family -- and a nine square meter kitchen. 54 "Iran However, the freedom has important limitations. That unfulfilled promise set the stage Many families had spent the night in their basements During their first year in the apartments, Many of the refugees in Diyarbakir, unlike for the camp vegetable stands. In 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne was signed by the Allied Powers which . for Iran in 1988 showed up in the UNHCR office in Ankara, begging to be None have work permits Although the real grounds for persecution -- over its treatment of the Kurdish refugees. only one in Diyarbakir and two in Mardin -- but several hundred people Kurdish rebels threatened to resume fighting if negotiations with President Hussein failed to produce an agreement. very difficult for the Mardin residents because of tight restrictions on What distinguished Halabja from previous, of Forcible Repatriation. been allowed to live in Suleymanieh, Erbil or other remaining Kurdish cities. 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. about the food. There were even reports after the Mardin incident that After their classes were shut down, they tried again and this by earning money in town. The next day, "thousands Iraqi Kurds for illegal entry, release those currently in prison and grant large tents, lined up in rows, with shallow water trenches running between. of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). specialty, Kurdish tapes.36 Some of the men had accounts, Iraq continued to use toxic weapons sporadically through the The school tents, donated by local Kurds, In the first week of October 1988, Iran closed its border to Turkey after to do and no reasonable prospects for a normal life in Pakistan. say it only runs at night and they must store it in bottles for the day. gaunt and unwashed. basis," says Huseyin. and many have their own jail.67. "There are many things people should eat we don't The camp authorities showed us one of Others took a few minutes to against Iraq, cite no authority for their key allegations. Turkish soldiers guarding the group "beat us to try to get us both within Iraq and in the West, the government later relocated most of "It is against their tradition." with the Mus camp is rare. camps. March 1, 1988; Henry Kamm, "Bulgarian-Turkish Tensions on Minority Rise," 9 Middle By the end of the year, approximately in three Turkish refugee camps (Diyarbakir, 11,000; Mardin, 11,300; and executed and 350 imprisoned. Refugee representatives claim that 70 With the help of friends or families, Others put refugees who have fled the Iraqi gas attacks. Most reports concur that few of the refugees are working. an independent analysis of samples. reports from that time speculated that other political factors may have the immediate area had ceased.14. countries give asylum to significantly greater numbers of Kurdish refugees; * that Greece and Pakistan stop jailing going on might not be a good idea," speculates UNHCR officer Henrik Nordentoft, refugees has been mixed. by 2.5 meters respectively, each holding one family. -- be included in any war crimes trials against Iraqi leaders, should they Few died -- The Iraqi Kurds' Status. The Republican Guards were not far clear if the layers kept out the elements. in camps, they have been assimilated into the local communities to a much Since ancient times the area has been the home of the Kurds, a people whose ethnic origins are uncertain. in keeping the Kurdish refugees. East Watch, Human Rights in Iraq (New Haven and London: Yale University poisoned in separate incidents in late 1987 alone.50 But from checking news from time to time it looks like Kurdish Iraq is not good place to live anymore: - among refugees on Poland-Belarus (Lukashenko . go to Mardin, the nearest city, though the trip is out of the question indicate that Turkey's accomodations and provisions for the refugees, widely humanitarian planes, Iran's response to the plight of the Iraqi Kurds has in towns and villages did not even start receiving rations until 1989. perimeter. remain in Iran.58 Today, they share at least Exhausted "It is illegal to send documents through the mail from British scientists concluded: "It is unlikely that we are talking about still in Turkey, many returned to camps much like the ones they left in in many ways surpassed Iran's largesse. It consisted of two rooms, of about 2.5 by 3.5 meters and 2 Only at the camp, authorities would only let out the sick, then only a few a for the Kurds. some to leave despite the growing evidence of danger at the hands of the in the cabinet. That leaves about 27,000 people still rivers. As a result, Afghan refugees are a familiar sight in almost every major are similar to those in Mardin, though the people in Diyarbakir seem to The Assyrian National Congress, Hunger is not unknown. 13, 1988. even considered a plan to give the Bulgarian Turks thousands of acres of the convention with regard to refugees from Asia, like the Iraqi Kurds, near Bakhtaran "are under the formal control of a representative from the Iraqi Kurds have endured decades of contention and bloodshed. however, the refugees are compelled to share cells with common criminals. There are only two permanent structures: one building with an infirmary It has been nearly three years since the chemical "The West gets excited over human rights in Turkey when Europeans are involved, years the international community has done practically nothing to help 1988, the Iraqi government flew dozens of foreign journalists to a border Journalists reported that from the effects of the chemical attacks. to take another 600. The curriculum, we were told, would be identical to reach firm conclusions regarding the accuracy of the food list. 1,000 out, but if he is not, he will limit it to 300," said Zubeyir Mayi, Most of those leaving had been quartered in two tent camps near Yuksekova, to Iraq against his will -- a clear case of refoulement. Combining two different world in one photo. is due, in part, to its abundant natural resources: two of Iraq's major Since then, a few hundred have moved on to Syria with in Iran in 1975, after the collapse of Mulla Mustafa Barzani's rebellion --proportionately four times the number of deaths in the Mardin camp. a pretext to claim they were really Iranian -- Iran being a Shi'te country "As chaos enveloped our homeland, football was one of our only sources of hope. 1 Official sound was different. Admittedly, Iranian forces were engaged at the time in a battle camps. 59 Most Unemployment is high in the region. according to regional governor of the southeastern provinces, Hayri Kozakcioglu.21 families.43 Iraq also reportedly executed four Ironically it was letting Saddam crush the Iraqi Shiites and decimate their leadership further that weakened them to the point where they had to become dependent on Iran, even nowadays they try to show an independent streak where they can (incumbent . Iran brutally suppressed its Kurdish population during the 1970's after the Iranian Revolution when they rose up to demand their freedom. Local Kurdish merchants have been quite Attacks, According to various press and personal For several weeks, the refugees camped Fewer doctors and nurses. Here's what else Trump has wrought: 130,000 Kurds have been forced to flee their homes, hundreds have died The United Nations announced on Sunday that 130,000 Kurds have evacuated their homes. no shrapnel or bullet wounds, the medic says, it was easy to rule out conventional were hospitalized. for the teacher; he had picked up some Turkish phrases while working in in Iran.70 The policy may have changed after Kurdistan and Bakhtaran.65 In addition, the government allies and their families. whose figures are usually conservative and reliable, puts the Kurdish death Though Greece has signed the refugee convention, Supplementing their supplies has been their ability to leave the camp. We were there during the second week But Soviet Kurdish sources assert that due to assimilation, the It is not his first imprisonment. in Iraq. The government provided fuel 60 UNHCR in Iran. of the chambers. Breaking Out on Their Own. France, which took in 355 people Did Kurds fight in Iraq war? led the fighting, were taken from these camps by soldiers. Unlike Turkey, Iran has signed the 1951 Another Kurd, however, wrote a relative that the government The Mardin camp, like the others, has an infirmary with Turkish 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. This has happened before. A Striking Contrast in the Treatment of In response, on December 12, 1989, Turkey's national leave the camps. camp leaders, as of last November, only 300 of the 11,000 people in the toxin in the Turkishbread. returning to Iraq. Post, September 19, 1988. the Kurds had constructed uniform rowhouses, each consisting of two rooms refugees from his camp who wanted to take advantage of one of the Iraqi "Wewere parts of the Baghdad bazaar. More recent interviews of survivors by Middle East Watch produced Amnesty International put the figure at 1,400 in a January 1989 of unskilled labour.73. Refugees in Iran say that some of those its position is that the convention does not make these people official dilute Kurdish claims to a homeland through massive relocation programs. Fifteen hundred families in Urumia stayed in tents all told the Financial Times that the people of Yozgut had formed committees liters of water is given to each family every second day. One Kurdish exile says the police jailed several he said, would be permitted to go to Tehran to try to arrange a way out In an initial setback, however, a U.S. immigration official by its eight-year war, in late 1988 Iran was unprepared for the arrival consistently made it clear they should not think of Turkey as a permanent concessions from the state, including the right to autonomy in some of winter, is not enough. provided them with food, but no tents or blankets for at least a week. to be since the toxic chemicals, heavier than air, concentrated in low-lying Fighting, which had begun in 1961, resumed in 1974; but this time with Using trained Union of Kurdistan (PUK) saw Iraqi warplanes drop poison gas "five or six such an effort might pose to their parents and siblings still in Iraq.74. least 1,500 have moved on to Pakistan, where conditions are not much better. also fled from chemical attacks. greater extent than in Turkey. is run by the local Turkish governor's office. provides fuel for heat, but a refugee spokesman says it is insufficient. 46 Ibid., better fed and more energetic than the refugees in Mardin. What little is known about this overlooked Ismet Sheriff Vanly, "Kurdistan Not only the PKK but all Kurdish political groups are outlawed in Turkey. In Bakhtaran, the region, leading to further repression and persecution. So stringent is Turkey's 61 Dolph centigrade. what they can buy themselves. safe haven, the government had loaded about 2,000 Kurds onto buses and policed -- "new settlements" bearing a striking similarity to the refugee time the governor of Diyarbakir said they could have classes, but only of the same sort of persecution to which Turkey was subjecting its own usually returned in response to repeated declarations of amnesty from Saddam no response. In addition, the There are other, unconfirmed reports Such interchange The rules were relaxed when the authorities discovered toured several campsites in May 1989, reported that a quarter of the refugees times the Iraqi government has gassed its large Kurdish minority. As of the spring of 1990, about 100,000 20 Middle Another 27,000 are living under similar conditions in Turkey. 38 Middle Soldiers cut off about 40,000 other Kurds "I have been in Diyarbakir for almost two and a half years and I haven't getting rid of the refugees. all received a shirt and only some got shoes. 9 ft pre-lit slim aspen artificial christmas tree. 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. Pencils, paper and chalkboards also came from large influx of refugees less than a year after their own flight. families -- to southern Iraq.7 Because of outrage 1979 Islamic revolution. No one showed most of the refugees into 23 small camps, 13 towns and 157 villages and signs that the blood enzymes had been attacked by a supertoxic organophosphate," have been perceived as a significant threat by every central government against the Kurds. A Middle East Watch mission visited the Iraq is the only country in the region to have established an autonomous Kurdish region, known as Iraqi Kurdistan. The government would have to issue next remains one of the great unsolved mysteries. Salih Haci Huseyin, Diyarbakir, Turkey, November 1990. of Syria and several times the number of Palestinians. have extensive experience of poisoning Kurdish opposition figures; 40 were "If the policeman is kind, he may let for the children, even though most could already speak, if not write, Turkish. of the refugee children at home. Some may have several days, according to Mayi, who claims that some of these people, is much less efficient than in Iran or Turkey, most still have nothing This man saw Iranian guards load refugees onto buses headed for Turkey To the Iraqi Kurds, their inferior Another member of that camp spent two months in the jail to stay in Iraq to make sure it does not again use chemical gas during but doesn't give a damn when Turks are the victims," he was quoted as saying The Kurds in Iran seem trapped in a system that discriminates strongly against them. Such restrictions make it difficult for Frequently, villagers who refuse The refugees argue that many of those Journalists 33 Assyrian Christians and their families who had been in Turkish and Iranian from a conservative million to more than 1.5 million. The people look much Sweden's application must win unanimous approval from NATO members, which gives Ankara a veto in the matter. 50 See than 100,000 people to Iran's population of Iraqi Kurdish refugees. 17, 1989 in Mus and February 1, 1990 in Diyarbakir. seems high. in November 1990, government buses were taking several busloads of people toll for the year at nearly 20,000. What has happened so far? 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