TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/042991/0429000.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.2 KB | 158 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 34

REFUGEES

Omar's Journey


Every Kurdish refugee has his own tale to tell and his own reason
to weep. Here is the story of one man and his family.

By EDWARD W. DESMOND/SHUSHAMI


     Talia is standing by the small window inside a worn tent,
a streak of morning light framing her pretty face in the smoky
air. She smiles at the baby in her arms, and for a singular,
brief moment she looks like a Madonna in the midst of hell. Her
three elder children are sitting on a blanket set on the cold,
damp ground. The eldest, a boy of seven, has a vacant look in
his eyes, and he twitches every few seconds, like someone lost
beyond the edge of pain. His younger brother and sister gaze at
him, then look quickly away, a fog of panic filling their eyes
as they contemplate their mad brother, the gloom of the tent,
their possessions reduced to a teapot, a blanket and a few
ragged clothes. Omar, their father, clears his throat and
volunteers, "The boy, he has been like that since the bombing.
He is disturbed, I think."

    Omar and his family come from Kirkuk, the northern Iraqi
city that was captured by Kurdish guerrillas in late March and
retaken by Iraqi forces about a week later. Omar decided to flee
Kirkuk after he saw the Iraqi Mi-24 helicopters hanging like
avenging demons on the horizon, unleashing their terrifying
rocket fire and evoking the threat of what he feared most:
chemical weapons that make every breath a draft of fire. Not
only was Omar sure that the Iraqis would kill many Kurds in
Kirkuk in reprisal, but he also knew that he would be in more
trouble than most. He is an ex-Iraqi army lieutenant who refused
the call to return to duty after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. So
he gathered his family and a few belongings and started the trip
toward Iran, leaving his car behind because the road was already
a chaotic snarl.

    They walked and hitched rides for six days to reach the
border, enduring sub-zero cold, rain and snowstorms that left
the children shivering uncontrollably. They marched high into
the hills of Kurdistan along narrow mountain roads deep in
slippery mud, thinking a thousand times that their world had
come to an end. The worst moment came at a mobbed road crossing,
where Omar and Talia, each with two children, were separated as
they struggled aboard different trucks. Omar did not see his
wife again for two days, and in his arms was their
seven-month-old daughter, weakly sobbing for her mother's milk.
Other nursing mothers saved the little girl's life by giving her
a turn at their breasts.

    Yet wretched as they are, Omar's family is among the
blessed ones. They live in one of the thousands of tents pitched
on the steep slopes of the Sirwan River valley, a few miles
inside the Iranian border. The Iranian army provides shelter,
bread every day, and a crude dispensary gives basic medical
help, especially against rampant dysentery caused by the lack
of clean drinking water. But Omar's family must make do with
only one blanket to stave off the frigid nights. The terrible
cold and disease claim young lives every day, a tragedy
underscored by the cemetery of small, fresh graves on a grassy
knoll above the camp. A red wash of wild poppies is in bloom,
a sad bouquet expressing heaven's remorse.

    Life is even more chaotic at the border checkpoint up the
road, where a crush of vehicles and humanity begins and
stretches back into Iraq for miles. With maddening slowness,
Iranian troops let a sprinkling of refugees through the
checkpoint, taking care not to let them pass before the
campsites are ready. Perhaps they could be settled faster, but
so far the Iranians have been left to do the job almost entirely
by themselves. Commitments from Western countries to help the
more than 1 million Kurds at the border have just started to
pick up beyond the initial trickle according to angry
international relief officials, who believe the slowness in part
reflects Western distaste for Iran's Islamic government.

    One stretch of the road has a steep mountain wall on one
side and a near vertical drop on the other, in places falling
away for several hundred feet. Old men overtaken by exhaustion
sprawl dangerously close to the brink. Other refugees step over
them, too tired to lend a hand. Distressed mothers, wondering
when dehydration and shock will claim their children, hold
their diarrhea-plagued babies over the road's edge and let them
relieve themselves.

    Where the roadside broadens into a high meadow, families
camp out under whatever shelter they can find, usually by
draping tattered plastic sheets over a frame of sticks. The
surrounding mountains were a major battleground during the
Iraq-Iran war, and minefields are everywhere. Relief officials
say dozens of refugees have been killed or maimed after straying
off the road.

    The fleeing Kurds are barefoot peasants as well as
prosperous city dwellers and farmers who have tried to escape
with their cars, trucks and tractors. A white Oldsmobile Cutlass
Ciera joins the line, along with a brand-new Massey-Ferguson
harvesting combine. Iranian soldiers drive up the road, throwing
bread to the Kurds and starting a frantic scramble that sends
more than one person rolling down a steep embankment. When the
crowd parts, old men patiently pick the crumbs out of rocks and
mud, their only margin of survival. Whenever the refugees
discover a reporter in their midst, they crowd around and find
someone to express their fury in English: "Why did George Bush
do this to us? He has betrayed us. Why did he tell us to rise
up? Why didn't he shoot down the helicopters?" The questions are
the same, over and over again.

    At the border post, the Iranian troops carefully search
each vehicle for weapons -- Tehran insists that Kurdish
fighters will find no haven in Iran -- as well as articles
offensive to strict Islamic sensibilities. Pop-music tapes, for
example, are forbidden, as is immodest dress. One woman, about
to drive her Volkswagen up to the checkpoint, frantically tied
a scarf over her hair but still stood out in a short skirt and
knitted leggings. She managed to get through the checkpoint, but
not before giving away her collection of tapes.

    The flight is particularly hard on more prosperous Kurds,
who are no more prepared to endure the rigors of refugee life
than American suburbanites would be. Khaleda, 19, a
well-dressed university student, escaped with her brother and
two cousins. Their parents gave them the car and told them to
go, fearing that the Iraqis would kidnap and kill the young
people, as they had after past uprisings.

    But they have languished in the long queue of cars on the
Iraqi side of the border for two weeks. Khaleda and her friends,
seeing the hardships ahead in the refugee camp, are among a very
small group who have decided to go back to their parents and
take a chance that Saddam will honor his pledge of amnesty for
the Kurds. "We can't stand it," she says. "At home we have a
nice big house and lots of money. We don't trust Saddam. But we
hope he will leave us alone." Nothing in her face shows that
she believes her own words.