Kurdistan - Susan Meiselas

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Kurdistan

When the Gulf War began, I, like most Americans, knew little about the Kurds. My first visit to the region was brief. Pleased to have the Western press witness the Kurds' pressing need for humanitarian aid, Iran granted me a five-day visa and access to the Kurdish refugee camps. It was barely enough time to leave Paris, cross the Iranian border and get to the "liberated" zone within Northern Iraq. While the world's attention was concentrated on the flight of the Kurds, I was drawn to the places from which they'd came. I drove in along the same road upon which many Kurds were still fleeing.

-S.M. from "Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History"

Kurdistan - Map presented by the Kurdish League Khoybun to the San...

Map presented by the Kurdish League Khoybun to the San Francisco Conference on March 30, 1945

Kurdistan - At Sardaw, a former Iraqi military headquarters on the...

At Sardaw, a former Iraqi military headquarters on the outskirts of Sulaimaniya, trench graves are dug up to reveal the remains of executed Iranian prisoners of war. A total of 18 Iranian soldiers were found executed in violation of the Geneva Conventions. An additional 13 civilians were found buried beside them. Northern Iraq, 1991

Kurdistan - Trench graves are exhumed at the former Iraqi military...

Trench graves are exhumed at the former Iraqi military headquarters of Sardaw on the outskirts of Sulaimaniya. A total of 18 Iranian soldiers were found exectued in violation of the Geneva Conventions. An additional 13 civilians were buried beside them. Sulaimaniya, 1991

Kurdistan - Exhumation of an old grave in the cemetery of Arbil where...

Exhumation of an old grave in the cemetery of Arbil where an executed civilian was buried by local gravedigger. Northern Iraq, 1991

Kurdistan - Map of Koreme gravesite, Jim Briscoe, American forensic...

Map of Koreme gravesite, Jim Briscoe, American forensic anthropologist. 1992

I was stunned by what I saw. I had never witnessed such a complete and systematic destruction of village life, even in ten years of covering the conflicts in Central America.

Although few Western observers had been inside northern Iraq for nearly a decade, reports periodically leaked out through the Kurdish network about Saddam Hussein's 1988 "Anfal" campaign, a brutal attempt at annihilation. Nearly 100,000 Kurds were said to have "disappeared." After reports that mass graves had been uncovered inside the Kurdish enclave, the group Human Rights Watch sent a mission into the territory to investigate. It was an opportune moment, since no one knew just how long it would take Saddam to regain military strength and reassert control over the region

-S.M. from "Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History"

Iraq, 1992

Kurdistan - TEARSHEET. The New York Times Magazine. January 3, 1993....

TEARSHEET. The New York Times Magazine. January 3, 1993. Sister with her exhumed brother at Koreme mass gravesite. Norther Iraq

Map of Koreme gravesite, Jim Briscoe, American forensic anthropologist. 1992

Kurdistan - Widow at mass grave found in Koreme. Northern Iraq, June...

Widow at mass grave found in Koreme. Northern Iraq, June 1992

Kurdistan - New cemetery of Gohtapa where villagers from mass grave...

New cemetery of Gohtapa where villagers from mass grave were reburied. June 1992

Kurdistan - Dr. Clyde Snow, internationally known forensic...

Dr. Clyde Snow, internationally known forensic anthropologist, holds the blindfolded skull of an executed male teenager estimated to be between 15-18 years old. The skull was found with two bullet holes in his head. Northern Iraq, December 1991