All in all, it had cost three hours of wasted time and a near-nervous breakdown for me.
We drove to a village nearer the border, where I was taken to a house. This turned out to be that of Ali’s family, and we were given a good welcome: provided with food, tea and some friendly chat. I was introduced to a rather frail looking Kurdish man with three children of four, five and seven; two girls and a boy in between. The guides were going to take me and this family across into Turkey. The man’s wife, he told me, had made it to Sweden, and he and the children were trying to join her. The children already had United Nations refugee status, but there was no official way to get them out of the country.
After finishing our meal of country bread, yoghurt and other village produce, Ali told us to dress warmly, as it would get very cold in the mountains at night. The children had barely anything to wear. Their plastic sandals with no socks would not do to traverse the Kurdish mountains, and the rest of their clothing was not much better. I gave them my spare socks, so both the girls had on two outsize pairs, and the boy one. Ali maintained that the journey would be impossible for them in their sandals, so their father gave one of the other men in the house enough money to go to the village and buy three pairs of wellington boots. This meant a further half an hour’s wait while we hung around for his return.
Looking at these children, with their new boots, huge socks and thin, threadbare clothing, I had real doubts. It was going to be a long trek over the rugged Kurdish mountains which were covered in snow and swept by the November winds. We had an enemy this side of the border, while the Turkish state security forces on the other side would hardly welcome us with open arms. Yet here we were, with a four, five and seven-year-old, as if we were about to go on a country picnic.
I raised my doubts with their father. ‘Don’t worry’, he told me. ‘These kids have been on the run from the Islamic regime through the mountains since they can remember. They’ve had to escape from one village to the next away from ground troop attacks and air raids. It’s second nature to them. We’re Kurds: we’re used to these mountains. You just worry about yourself.’
Dusk was descending when we left the house. We clambered into a WWII covered Jeep, the transportees squashed in the back, with Ali driving and a relative of his, Kalan, acting as a guard in the passenger seat. He cradled a sniper’s rifle in the crook of his arm. Kalan was in his mid-20s, tall and strongly built. He didn’t really look like he needed the rifle. He sat hunched against the door, ready to fire, should the need arise. Once more we drove towards the border, this time on our final leg.
As we headed upland, the only signs of life were children driving flocks of sheep in the opposite direction. The occasional farmer’s Jeep would pass us going the other way, its occupants waving as they went. As we went on, even these encounters became rarer. The track was now so rough and steep that any less hardy form of vehicle would have ground to a halt. The drive continued in silence. We surveyed the bleak slopes around us, scanning them for people – particularly troops. It was a stop-start journey. When we approached the crown of each mountain, we would stop and Kalan would get out, run to the other side, and look for danger. He would sweep the way ahead with his binoculars, gun by his side. If he wasn’t happy that the way was clear, then we would wait down the far slope until it was considered safe. Then we would drive along until we reached the next mountain peak, where the same security ritual would be repeated.
Some of the route was too much even for the Jeep. At the bottom of the valleys we would face a stream. Ali would follow it downstream until a suitable place to ford could be found. All but Ali would get out so that our Jeep was not too weighed down. We splashed after it, wading through the icy waters.
On the mountain tops we had a similar problem. Often it was too icy, too steep or both for the Jeep to get over with us in it, so we would follow on behind, bags slung over our shoulders. By now four or five hours had passed. It was the middle of the night, and we were in one small Jeep, surrounded by the huge sentinels of the Kurdish mountains. The midnight cold dug its nails into us. Kalan and Ali were used to it, as was the old man. I had the clothes for it, but the children were freezing and miserable. They had on their single items of clothing, thin and so worn and dirty you couldn’t tell what the colour used to be. I dug into my sack and handed out the clothes I had. Two got a pullover each, the elder girl my jacket, the arms falling down past her knees. The two smallest got a hat each. You could hardly see them under the rolled up clothing and pulled-down hats.
Finally, we pulled up at a small, dried-mud hut, right on a peak. The moon illuminated the mountains as far as we could see, stretching out in every direction. Here we met our other guide: old, tall, with a face as craggy as the country in which he lived. He was called Raíse: a name for a tribal chief. He and a young couple were waiting in the hut for us. This desolate outpost was where they lived.
Inside, sheltered from the piercing wind and snow, we relaxed. In the centre of the hut’s floor was a hollow in which a fire was built up, where they baked bread. We sat, surrounding the fire, toes stretched and waggling, blissfully defrosting. The floor was covered with woollen army blankets and where the chief usually sat, a kilim, woven with Kurdish designs. He offered this prime position to all of us, and wouldn’t sit until one of us had occupied it; the old man and his three children sat there, as they were so cold.
We were served from a teapot, heated over the fire, freshly baked bread, and cheese made with milk from their sheep. There was no lavatory. If you felt nature’s call, you answered it by melting the snow outside.
Raíse had to make the decision as to whether it was safe to continue. After eating, he went outside with a pack of cigarettes and his binoculars to scan the mountains; looking east for the Islamic guards, and west for the Turkish border patrols. Every now and then, he would come in and report movements. He finally decided that it would be safe enough between 2am and 3am; a rising mist concealing our progress from unfriendly eyes.
Now that we were leaving Iran behind, we handed over our Iranian currency to the couple in the hut, who could make better use of it than us. We also gave them some American dollars out of gratitude for the good food and company, dollars being more stable than Touman.
The children were asleep within minutes of getting into the warm and they took some waking when we were ready to leave. We said our goodbyes to Ali and Kalan, who told us they would meet us a few days later in Turkey, all being well. Then it was out of the warm glow of the little hut into the black of the mountain night, once more to feel the icy fingers of the wind pull at our thin clothing. We now had to contend with intermittent mountain snowfall without the shelter of our Jeep – soon to be sorely missed. The last ten miles would be made on foot.
At 2am we headed off down the mountain slope, in single file behind Raíse. The young man from the hut, Hamad, acted as scout way out in front. Both had binoculars round their necks and a rifle slung over their backs.
The older girl was fiercely independent, trying to show that she didn’t need any help. But every now and then she would miss her step and would have to be pulled back to her feet. The four-year-old needed a lot of help, but would only trust her father. I held the little boy’s hand tightly, helping to pull him up the slopes and guiding him down, steering him away from the many sheer drops we had to skirt round and along. The older girl chose to divide her time between Hamad and Raíse, so all of us took care of the children. They cried from fear, cold and fatigue over the roughest ground, but there was no time to stop. Our little group had to cover far too much ground before morning if we were to reach anything like safety by daybreak.
At dawn, we found ourselves on a slope looking down on the Turkish border. The earth had been turned over by a bulldozer in one unbroken line, so that if anyone crossed the border they would leave footprints. Over we went, leaving our mark.
A large, grey concrete barracks stood on the horizon, overlooking the valleys. It was surrounded by h
igh walls and barbed wire. The Turkish troop build-up had been as a result of the Gulf war, but was also employed to crush the Kurdish resistance in the area. Both of these conflicts made our crossing that much more hazardous, and life for the Kurdish people of the area uncertain and dangerous.
The sun now struck the mountainside, preventing further progress. Any movement forward would have cast our shadows on the mountain in a way that could be seen from the Turkish barracks.
We headed towards a nearby village, where we would be safe for the day. The villagers told our guides they had been raided that night by Turkish forces looking for guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK). Many houses had been pulled apart in searches and three or four had been razed to the ground.
The area was thick with Turkish forces. They swarmed through the local villages like a plague of rats. We moved from hut to hut throughout the day so that the locals would not get an idea who we were. The villagers were understandably wary of helping out strangers because the Turkish forces came down hard on Kurds thought to be sympathetic to the uprising. They would destroy crops and carry out random arrests and even summary executions.
By nightfall we were eager to move on. We were introduced to a new guide, a middle-aged, well respected local named Rasheed. He took us by car down the mountain lanes to the nearest border town. It was a hazardous journey. At every twist in the road we would stop and Rashid would survey the road through his binoculars. If the way wasn’t clear, we would be hurried out of the car and into the roadside ditch, up would come the bonnet of the car and Rashid and the driver would pretend to be getting their old banger started again. We would lie in the ditch below the level of the window, hardly daring to breathe, until the danger passed.
The children seemed to be old hands at this, as if it was as natural as a game of hide-and-seek. But this wasn’t an extension of their games, more a skill they had been forced to learn to survive the war and repression of their homeland. Each time we got through one of these interruptions, I felt I had got over one more hurdle that stood between me and freedom. Three or four hours passed in this manner before we reached the town.
We were taken to a village on the outskirts, where we stayed for nearly a week. The couple who put us up had a large young family and a sizeable house, plus a number of smaller buildings around the yard. We were treated as part of the family, eating with them, being entertained by their music. Kurdish music was banned, so they were careful to keep the noise down. My fellow refugee had his own songs, and would give his own performance, sometimes accompanied by his three children.
Well looked-after though we were, we could not leave the house. There was a great danger that we would be stopped and questioned by Turkish Jandarma, leading to our deportation back to Iran and our hosts’ arrest. As long as we stayed here, all our lives were in danger.
Though both the family I escaped with and the one we stayed with were Kurdish, their languages were different, as were their customs. It was not always easy to communicate. We got by with gestures during the days we spent there.
Rasheed would come over once or twice a day to ensure that everything was all right, as did our original guide, Ali. Rasheed said that he was finalising arrangements for the next leg of the trip. One morning, he arrived in a taxi. He explained that this was going to take us to the capital city, Ankara, about 700 miles away. This would get us out of heavily militarised and policed Turkish Kurdistan. We piled in and set off once more, with Rasheed sitting alongside the driver.
Before we left the town, our driver pulled in at a petrol station to fill up. As he was doing so, an armoured troop carrier pulled up on the opposite side of the street. Two soldiers in full combat gear crossed, carrying semi-automatics, and demanded to see our driver’s identification. They questioned Rasheed. One walked round to the back of the car to take a look at us. The children stared back at him. The old man looked Kurdish, but could have been Iranian, Iraqi or Turkish. As many of the older Kurdish people could not speak Turkish, the soldier didn’t bother to question him. I had on a woollen hat of a local style, trying to look native. I was playing sick, and Rasheed told the soldier that they were taking me to the nearest town for medical treatment. I hoped I appeared ill enough not to be questioned.
The boot was searched, and nothing suspicious was discovered. I was so scared I really didn’t need to pretend I was ill, as my hands trembled and my body was bathed in a cold sweat. Our group must have been their patrol’s ‘first customer’, so we were treated to a more thorough search than was normal. After they had poked, prodded and questioned until they were bored, they returned to the troop carrier and we were on our way.
While we passed through Kurdistan Rasheed maintained his habit of stopping at bends to check ahead. When we passed through towns, our driver was careful to keep to the back roads, avoiding any check points. We didn’t stop off anywhere, instead eating food we bought along the way, taking our meals while on the move. Rasheed would stop at friendly shops for food and ask the shopkeeper if there were any security checks in front of us. The whole long journey was one incessant worry.
As we continued, the country became flatter. All the land around us was under cultivation. Although the ground was icy, many people from the villages we passed through were still working on the soil.
The car passed through the outskirts of Ankara at about 8pm. This gave us about three hours to kill until the next leg, from Ankara to Istanbul, by bus. We went to the central bus terminal and sat around while Rasheed arranged our tickets. Drivers stood by their coaches, competing for trade, shouting ‘Istanbul! Istanbul!’, along with their price. We stretched our legs around the bus terminal, taking in the sights before the next long drive. I cleaned up in the public toilets and grabbed myself a bite to eat at a nearby cafe.
At 11pm we clambered into our coach, Rasheed still with us. It would be another 12 to 16 hours on the road, depending on the bus’ reliability. After an uncomfortable night’s sleep curled up on a bus seat, we pulled into Istanbul at noon. As we stretched out our aches and pains, Rasheed hailed a taxi and took us to a hotel, where we registered under false names. He then passed us over to our next contact, Omar, who was responsible for forged passports and visas.
We were permanently on edge. The whole operation was fraught with risk, both for us and our contacts. There seemed to be a million and one ways in which the whole thing could fall through, even at this late stage. We shared the hotel with other refugees from Iran and Iraq. From them, we heard of others who had been turned back when reaching their destination; some who were arrested while boarding their plane, and others who were ripped off by those who had promised to get them out, leaving them high, dry and broke. A few were apprehended by the security forces and handed back to Iran. As if this was not enough, the Islamic regime had its own killers at work in Turkey, hunting down and murdering refugees. Fear hung over us while we sat around in this refugees’ limbo.
After three weeks, when it seemed clear that there was no chance of an immediate transfer to a third country, we decided that it was best to register with the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in Ankara. That, we thought, would make the Turkish authorities less keen to hand us back. Omar made arrangements for the trip to Ankara, once more by overnight bus. We found ourselves a place in the queue at the UN’s refugee office, as others who shared our plight milled around, filled in and flourished papers, and harangued officials. This bureaucratic limbo thronged with diverse people and a babble of Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic and Persian tongues. All there seemed to share a peculiar lost, desolate look that characterises so many refugees. There wasn’t one of us who knew where we would be next week, and there wasn’t one who didn’t fear deportation back to where they had escaped from at so much cost.
We queued all day. Towards the evening we were taken to a booth and photographed. Each of us was subject to an individual, probing interview. It felt more like being charged at a police station than being helped to freedom and safet
y. By nightfall we were given a paper which confirmed our registration with the UN as refugees. At last we had some legal status.
It was a frustrating time. Any thoughts we might have had of a quick passage through Turkey to another country had been banished as we sat in our Istanbul hotel rooms, sinking further into depression as time passed. Each day was just like the last. It was on just such an evening that Turkish police raided the hotel. They forced their way into rooms. The word went round and the ‘illegal’ refugees got out quick. Even though I was legal, I had already checked out exits less orthodox than the front door. I knew the ways down the fire escape and the windows it was safe to jump from.
It seemed safest not to hang around and explain my legally established status to the police. It is not unknown for the Turkish state to hand legal refugees back to Iran and worry about the paperwork later. I was not registered under my real name and it didn’t seem wise to wait to see if the police would choose to make anything out of this irregularity. So down the fire escape I went, and along a narrow alleyway. I got on the main road, frantically hailed a taxi and shouted, ‘Bus terminal!’, in my broken Turkish. Once I was at the terminal I phoned comrades in Istanbul, explaining what had happened, and then others in Ankara, arranging to be picked up at the station when I arrived the next day.
Noon the next day saw me waiting for my contacts in Ankara. I was picked up by two comrades and taken to a small flat where two families and two individual refugees stayed. The rent was extortionate, and everything was so expensive that everyone was living off a communal vat of beans, supplemented occasionally by butter and potatoes. The water supply was cut off between 8am and 12 midnight in this part of the city so we had to save water to wash dishes and clothes. There was only enough hot water for two or three people a day to shower. It was like being back in prison.
A State of Fear Page 26
