Dubai: “I was running up the mountain—my sister leading the way. There was only one mask and she made me wear it. I was only six and I remember being upset that she made me wear it because she wasn’t wearing one. It was only until I was much older, I understood she was trying to save my life.”
Twenty-five years later Hawar Said, sits down with me to share vivid memories of her early childhood, growing up with the Peshmerga.
“I come from a family of freedom fighters,” she told Gulf News.
Her dad and uncles fought with the Peshmerga—whose name translates as “those who face death”— the Kurdish fighters in northern Iraq. They have garnered international attention in recent years because they have successfully fought Daesh terrorists in Iraq and dramatically reversed their gains.
Now thought to number around 190,000, the Peshmerga have their roots in groups of loosely organised tribal border guards in the late 1800s, but were formally organised as the national fighting force of the Kurdish people after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War One.
As the Kurdish nationalist movement grew, so too did the identity of the Peshmerga as a key part of Kurdish culture—evolving from tribal defenders to nationalist fighters for an independent Kurdish state.
Considered rebels by Saddam
Because they were a considered a rebel group under the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussain, they were often targeted by government war planes—sometimes those planes carried chemical weapons.
It was the late 80s—a particularly turbulent time in Iraq—as Saddam, weakened by gruelling eight-year-war with neighbouring Iran, turned to consolidate his authority over a deeply-splintered country.
His abuses against Kurds, Shiites and even his own Sunni population have been widely documented.
Perhaps one of the most horrific attacks under Saddam, was known as the Halabja Massacre in which up to 5,000 Kurds, mostly civilians were killed in a series of chemical attacks, under the infamous Al Anfal campaign.
“We weren’t in Halabja but my father’s brigade in the mountains was frequently targeted with chemical weapons,” she said.
“At the age of five I learned to distinguish between regular artillery planes and those which carried chemical weapons.”
Running to bunkers
If it was a regular war plane the wives and children of the peshmerga would run down the mountains—where the fighters lived—to underground bunkers.
If it was a chemical plane they would run up the mountain. They would have to share gas masks as they didn’t have enough for everyone.
“Being so young, there was only so much I could grasp. I knew there was danger but I didn’t understand why I had to wear a mask and what chemical weapons were,” she said.
“The first time I saw a naked man I was six and my mother was washing dead bodies after a particularly devastating attack on my father’s brigade,” she said. They lost 40 fighters-among them direct relatives.
Eventually, her father made the painful decision to leave Kurdistan in order to protect his wife and five children at the time and ensure them a better future.
With the help of smugglers Hawar’s family managed to escape to Iran.
“There were around 20 of us and two horses. We traveled by night and hid during the day. It took us seven days to reach—some didn’t survive the journey.”
Her father applied for asylum and eventually moved the family to Vancouver Canada.
It was a difficult transition. Hawar suffered from post-traumatic stress and had nightmares for years.
Luckily, the Canadian government provided the family not only with housing but with mental health support.
“It took me years of counselling to grasp the fact that I am now safe and that chapter of my life is over. But I still think back and wonder ‘How come I survived and others didn’t?’”
Dream and reality
“When I recall the memories, it's almost like a dream because it seems like a lifetime ago,” she says.
“But, the sad reality is that it is still happening today.”
She admits its hard for her to watch the news—especially about refugee crises around the world.
“When the crisis in Syria happened it brought me back to those painful days. I actually had to stop watching the news because it brought me into a very depressed and angry state where you feel completely helpless,” she says.
Her father eventually moved back to Kurdistan and continues working closely with the peshmerga. His brothers and nephews are still fighting on the frontlines.
“Its in his blood, he’s been in the peshmerga since the age of 17. He only left Kurdistan to save his family from death but now that he’s done his duty as a father he went back home,” she says.
Four years ago, Hawar decided to visit her father in Arbil for the first time since her family escaped.
The peshmerga were able to take her back to the mountain she lived in as a child—many things had been destroyed but some things remained.
As many family members were buried in that mountain, it will forever be home to her.
She got to see the makeshift bomb shelter her family had hid in and she spent time with her cousin—many of whom are fighters in the peshmerga.
She said the visit was important for her because it reconnected her to a past she had almost blocked out from her life.
“Seeing that all of what my father was fighting for decades ago is still alive and seeing my cousins fighting Daesh now, makes me very proud.”
