Rescue Iraq

Making the Papers

On a recent visit to the Mayor's village up in the mountains, I met the editor of a popular newspaper here in Kurdistan, called BAS News. It's a pretty popular weekly that features color pages and the typical advertising inset.

Since we were all dressed out in our Kurdish clothes, the editor insisted on taking a photo of us. The boys weren't so pleased, however, but we acquiesed.

Then, the very next day a reporter from the newspaper showed up at our door to get the 'full' story. It was published just two days later, in full color.

Here's a look:

 Download BAS News article

My Kurdish friends say it is flattering in it's tone, so not to worry. : )

Slowly but Surely

Well, you'd think that with all the activity we've seen along the border recently, we wouldn't have enough time to move forward with the building of our community center. Fortunately, progress continues on the building, I'm happy to say.

Here are a couple pics of our small conference room/woman's center taking shape.

Putting in electrical sockets and lights.

Funds, however, will only allow us to finish this room at present.

If you'd like to contribute to the finishing of our community center project, do not delay.

Here's a quick breakdown of the costs:

$3,500 per room (6 rooms remaining on the ground floor)
$7,500 for the kitchen (including appliances)
$4,000 -- outside wall plastering plus window sills and windows
$3,500 -- full length hallway/entryway (tiling and plastering)
$5,000 -- Waiting Room/Guest Room 

$7,000 per Restroom -- (2 main Restrooms)

$25,000 - $30,000 (Grand Hall)

Call World Orphans at  1-888-ORPHANS  if you'd like to make a donation.

Land Mines

"...8,000 people have been handicapped by land mines and 6,000 killed. In addition, 18 members of mine clearance teams have lost their lives and more than 60 have been injured." reports Rudaw

The land mine crisis in Iraq rarely gets the attention of the media, however, in the past week, I've noticed two articles about it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-15070811

http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/4001.html

In our region, it is said that a land mine is detonated every week, by either a passing sheep  
or, in the worst case, a human being.

Most of the mines were placed over 30 years ago during the Iran - Iraq war, but they are still here today just as deadly as when they were buried beneath the earth.

On a climb to a peak overlooking our valley, we came across several of these signs, unfortunately, we were starring at the backs of them. We had just walked through a marked mine field. Fortunately, no one missed a step.

When I look into the mountains of our region, my heart just craves to conquer these beautiful, majestic peaks. Some of them we have climbed with careful guides, but many will just have to remain unconquered.

For the Kurds who say that they "have no friends, but the mountains," this is a bitter reality indeed, living entrapped and somehow sheltered at the same time by a deadly beauty.

Disturbing Developments

Well, if you haven't been disturbed enough about the recent news of Iranian shelling in our area, I thought I'd uncover some further news that makes this scene all but alarming.

First of all, I wanted to show what these mortar shells can actually do. As we were leaving the village, just on the outskirts as were heading back down into the valley, we came across this telephone pole clearly struck by the recent shelling. Our security excort confirmed our fears.

Notice how it just explodes out the back.

 Shrapnel's only purpose is to maim and kill life. These are the weapons Iran is using on these bystanders in a 'war' they care nothing about.

Doing a little sleuthing I discovered that a 120mm mortar's maximum range is just 4.5 miles (someone correct me if I'm wrong), and this village stands at the very least 10 miles from the border of Iran.

Honestly, though, my hunch would be that a smaller caliber mortar was used in the neighborhood of 60mm, greatly reducing it's range. You can see that the impacts to the ground are slight but obviously devastating to anyone standing within 10-20 yards.

 This is the impact believed to have killed the mother of 5 two weeks ago.

So, all this means, that even if the larger mortar was used, the Iranian soliders would have had to transgress the Iraqi border by at least 6 miles before lauching their shells on this village. I've posted a map of our area here to give a visual picture of the region:

 The highlighted village named, Kolit is where the recent shelling took place. As you can see it's not very close to the Iranian border at all. [the red dots by the way are mine fields left by Saddam, the PKK, and Iranian forces] Remember, Kolit is not the only village that has been evacuated, 6 other villages in this area have as well.

Further disturbing is the report from the villagers that they could actually see the flashes of the mortars as they were launched from the tops of the mountains overlooking their valley.

This was a close range affair. Iran, for all intents and purposes, had a visual on this village - they weren't just aiming blindly.

When I asked my security detail about heading up the valley to see another village that had been bombed, he said, that he couldn't take me there. We were welcome to go ourselves, but he would not take a step further.

Clearly, Iran has not only transgressed the border region to shell these innocent bystanders, but encamped within Iraq proper.

A recent article explains why: http://www.rudaw.net/english/kurds/3976.html

Iran recently gave the Kurdish Regional Government an ultimatum to deal with the PKK and PJAK elements within their borders or they will themselves. That was last week, but they've already begun to take things into their own hands.

In coordination with these strikes within the heartland of Iraqi-Kurdistan, is Turkey's air force that has bombed our region repeatedly in the past 2-3 months. Just last month a family of 7 driving through the region and was hit by a rocket killing all of them. And this week another rocket struck a truck driver killing him, not 15 miles from where we live here in Northern Iraq.

The crazy thing is, is that everyone here knows that the PKK, PJAK do not have vehicles. So, why are they striking cars and trucks?

Listen, is that more jets we hear?

Tragedy in the Village, Part 2

As we headed out of the village, the image of the old man's face with tears in his eyes kept coming back to me. I've seen few men older than him. The lines on his face seem to tell of hardships that I could never understand or comprehend. And now, he was moving again. How many times has he fled Iran's shelling or Saddam's troops, or Turkey's warplanes?

The vacated village is just one of seven that have recently become uninhabitable in our region. How many more will follow?

Keeping our eyes peeled on the road ahead we came across a couple men that told us they were part of the larger family that recently lost the woman with 5 children. We followed them another few kilometers, then cut off sharply into a canyon with a stream running besides a half a dozen tents.

Parking the car I looked up to see the man that had lost his wife just 10 days prior. I got out and shook his hand as warmly as I could.

He ushered me over to a large tent where we learned first-hand what had happened that night.

Here's more of that story:

 

  Saying 'Goodbye' - at least for now.

Tragedy in the Village, Part 1

Two weeks ago in a small Iraqi Kurdish village just 12 ½ miles from the border of Iran, a rain of mortar shells began falling all around. A mother of 35 years with 5 small children ran for shelter in her fright and was struck in the head and shoulder with shrapnel along a path between two houses. She would later die of her wounds that night.

I went to hear the story of this tragedy first hand last week with a good friend of mine who agreed to take some photos and video of our time. We had no idea what to expect, we just decided to go.

The Mayor of our community called ahead to the nearest town, called Sidikhan, and set us up with a security guard and an interpreter to help us along the way.

As we exited the town north, we immediately hit a gravel road that continued higher and higher up into the mountains, further in towards the borders with Iran and Turkey.

The drive was beautiful and we used the time to get acquainted with our new interpreter. He told us stories of how he had served in the army years back in these same mountains has they fought conflicts with the PKK. Pointing to one mountain he said, “my buddy was marching just in front of me along a trail there when he stepped on a mine… there was barely anything left of him below his waist.”

As we neared the village where the woman had died, we stopped to talk with a local man who pointed to a cache of belongings on the other side of the road. He said, “Look there, that is all that remains of the people’s prized possessions, and they will take those out today.”

The village had entirely evacuated except the owners of that last bundle of possessions lying on the side of the road.

This was a story I wasn’t quite prepared for, but knew I had to hear.