An
Episode of an Egyptian series Niran Sadeeqa [Friendly Fire] that is
aired on the Saudi channel MBC for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan
has rekindled a public outrage among Kurds on social networks
recently about the story of 18 Kurdish girls and women who were sent
to Egypt by the Saddam Hussein regime to be forced into sex slavery
about a quarter of a century ago.
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| Khurasan Abdullah (top) and her daughter Chiman (A little girl in the ID photo) And below the photos is the Iraqi intelligence secret letter from the Kirkuk office to the main office in Baghdad and below that is the wearing photo page of the Iraqi ID of Chiman whose Mother's name Khurasan Abdullah also appears on the same page |
In
the scene, a young Egyptian protagonist appears talking to a man who
is apparently working for his father about how 18 Kurdish girls and
women who were captured by the Saddam Hussein regime in the Anfal
operations in Kurdistan ended up in his night club. The man replies
that he has no authority and that he is just following orders [the
protagonist's father]. When the protagonist talks to his father how
and why he had accepted to force the Kurdish women
into working in the night club, the father replies “Son, isn't it
better for them [to live] than to die like others [Kurds] who die on a daily basis [in Iraq]?” referring to the Anfal operations.
“No,
it is better for them to die. At least they die martyrs. It is more
honorable for them to die than to be forced into working in the night
club” the young man replies to his father.
Anfal
was a series of military operations aimed at crushing the Kurdish
revolt in the 1980s. In the campaign, the Iraqi army destroyed 5,000
Kurdish villages and rounded up up to 182,000 civilian Kurds among
them women and children, killed them and buried them in mass graves.
The
mention of the Kurdish girls and women created a public outrage
especially because an Iraqi intelligence document surfaced on the
social networks a few years ago according to which the Kirkuk
provincial office confirmed to the general intelligence office in
Baghdad that they had sent the women to Egypt to be used in the
“night clubs” and the document included a list of the names of
all the girls and women who aged between 14 and 29 years.
The
letter from the Kirkuk office which is dated December 20th
1989 and is addressed to the general intelligence office, states:
“After [receiving] immediate authorization from the political
leadership and carrying out the First Anfal and Second Anfal
operations, in which a group of different people were captured among
them a group of girls whose ages range between (14 – 29), we have,
as per your orders, sent a number of those girls to the brothels and
night clubs in the Arabic Republic of Egypt as you ordered. Attached
is a list of the names of those girls and their ages for your
reference”
All those years the surviving families of the girls and women thought their loved ones had been killed in the Anfal campaign until the intelligence document which is marked "highly clasified" appeared on the social media.
All those years the surviving families of the girls and women thought their loved ones had been killed in the Anfal campaign until the intelligence document which is marked "highly clasified" appeared on the social media.
The
Kurdish authorities did not launch any investigations into finding
the women in Egypt or what happened to them when the document
surfaced for the first time following the 2003 Iraq war, according to
Bestoon Fayaq, a political activist and advocate for the families of
the Anfal victims. Fayaq said the authorities even dismissed the document as fake and said no Kurdish girls or women had been sent to Egypt.
“The
Kurdish leadership lied to us” Fayaq has said (Niha24). “A few
years ago... we asked Jalal Talabani, Iraqi President (a Kurd) to
verify the authenticity of the news [that Kurdish women were sent to
Egypt] and he assured us that he had contacted Egypt and that there
was no such thing. Then we asked Adnan Mufti, former Kurdish
Parliament Chairman [to investigate the news] and he answered the
same way” (Sbeiy)
Fayaq
said the mentioning of the 18 Kurdish girls and women was evidence
that the story was true otherwise why would it be brought up in an
Egyptian series.
Following
up on the story of the 18 Kurdish girls and women, Sbeiy news outlet
– which is associated with the opposition party Gorran – released
ID information of three of the names listed on the document including
ID photos of two of them whose only surviving member of the family
had survived the Anfal campaign.
Three
of the names on the list are Chiman Nazim Abbas, Layla Abbas Jawhar
and Khorasan Abdullah Tawfiq. Sbeiy has identified a man in
Sulaimaniyah city named Karim Abbas Jawhar who claims he is the
brother of Leyla Abbas Jawhar, uncle of Chiman Nazim Abbas and
brother-in-law of Khurasan Abdullah Tawfiq who is also the mother of
Chiman Nazim Abbas.
According
to Sbeiy, Mr Karim has called on the Kurdish authorities to
investigate the fate of his family members but they had let him down.
Despite legal attempts by Mr Karim, his case has been closed by the
authorities, Sbeiy reports.
Kurdistan
Without Genocide, an NGO advocating the Anfal victims, called on the
KRG in a statement to immediately cut ties with Egypt until the
authenticity of the document is verified (Niha24)
Three other NGO that advocate the Anfal victims have warned the KRG to take action and return the 18 girls and women to Kurdistan or they will have "tough reactions"and will take "legal procedures" against the KRG (KNNC)
The
Kurdistan Regional Government's Minister of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs
Aram Ahmed Mohammed has pledged to pursue the case of the 18 Kurdish
women after the family of another member of the 18 women pleaded with
the ministry to disclose the fate of their family member.
Abdul
Khaliq Qader Aziz is another person who survived Anfal and is
claiming one of the women listed in the document, Esmat Qader Aziz,
to be his sister. Acording to a statement released by the Ministry,
Mr Abdul Khaliq has visited the Ministry and met with the Minister
and personally asked him to pursue the fate of his sister and
other 17 women.
"The
ministry will make all efforts to pursue the case in order to reach
the truth of this news seriously, so the Minister if Martyrs and
Anfal and a group of families of the victims will visit Consulate of
Republic of Egypt in the capital Erbil to pursue the case as a first
step” the minister has said in a statement quoted Shafaq News.
Names
of the girls and women and their ages as listed in the Iraqi
intelligence letter:
Galawej
Adel Rahim (14)
Chiman
Nazim Abaas (22)
Leyla
Abbas Jawhar (21)
Lamiah
Nazim Omar (19)
Bahman
Shukir Mustafa (26)
Khusaran
Abdullah Tawfiq (20)
Qadriyah
Ahmed Ibrahim (17)
Golmalek
Ibrahim Ali (19)
Khawla
Ahmed Fakhradeen (25)
Esmat
Qader Aziz (24)
Najiba
Hassan Ali (18)
Hasiba
Ameen Ali (29)
Shiler
Hassan Ali (20)
Shukriyah
Rustem Mohammad (27)
Habiba
Hidayat Ibrahim (15)
Kuwestan
Abbas Mawlud (26)
Serwa
Othman Karam (17)
Soza
Majeed (22)
Link to the Egyptian series scene:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=166565986861512&set=vb.191172917580661&type=2&theater
You are welcome.
ReplyDeletePeople outside the middle east really need to hear more about what Saddam did to the Kurds. Honestly, reading all this reaffirms my belief that the Bush white house was filled to bursting with a bunch of narrow-minded half-wits. Otherwise they'd have been constantly putting these events into the news cycle to drum up support for the War in Iraq (and would have gotten it as well).
ReplyDeleteYou are right. Even we Kurds sometimes forget about all the atrocities inflicted upon us by the Saddam regime that's why when things such as this one happen they rekindle the outrage again because suddenly we remember.
ReplyDelete