The Silent Escape Through the Nights of the Kurdish Regions

Book excerpt: It was very difficult time for the Kurds, because Kurdish people began a revolution against the Iraqi government. The Kurdistan leadership under Mustafa Barzani took arms struggle against the government, due the government denied the Kurdish rights such as autonomy. The Iraqi government attacked the Kurdish cities, towns and villages in Iraqi Kurdistan. The Kurds existed thousands of years before the arrival of the Arabs in the Middle East. In July 1963 the Iraqi troops brutally attacked the innocent Kurdish civilians. My father was a police officer at the local police station in Sulaimaniyah, and he knew that the Iraqi Military would attack our city and the other provinces of Kurdistan. My dad told us to be ready to leave the city and go to the town of Berzinje, we all left except my dad and then to the village of Wenderene. Then my father arrived too, and said the military imprisoned, and killed, so many innocent people including teenagers. We had two big photos of Mustafa Barzani and Mam Jalal Talabani, my father tried to break the photos, but he cut his fingers while doing that. The son of our x-landlord was killed without any legitimate reason; his parents buried him in the house. My aunties friend Kak Fars helped us a lot in the village. My grandfather had a donkey in order to get him to the vineyard in Berzinje. My dad asked us to go to the village of Wanderene and take some foods and blankets. We tried our best in order to hide from the Iraqi (National Guards), these troops were sent from Baghdad the capital of Iraq.