Humanitarian Operations in Northern Iraq, 1991

With Marines in Operation Provide Comfort

                           Call To Action

   In early April 1991 the rugged, snow-capped mountains of northern Iraq
were flooded by waves of refugees fleeing the wrath of Iraqi dictator Saddam
Hussein. In the aftermath of a failed revolt, more than two million people
decided to leave Iraq. The resulting exodus was a dangerous journey toward an
uncertain future. Many of the roads were mined, and helicopter gunships
sometimes strafed the refugee columns that stretched as many for as 30 miles
back from the border. Some fled in automobiles, others jammed on board buses.
Open-bed trucks overflowed with humanity, tractors and donkey carts hauled
families, and barefoot young rnothers carried infants or dragged shell-shocked
children as they trekked toward the chilly safety of the mountains. Most of these
refugees were Kurds, an ethnic tribal minority that comprised one-fifth of Iraq's
population and claimed northern Iraq as an ancestral home, Kurdistan.
   After Desert Storm devastated Iraq's military, the Kurds tried to rid
themselves of the yoke of Saddam's regime. At first,   they easily drove
disheartened Iraqi soldiers out of Kurdistan. A festival atmosphere prevailed and
the towns and villages were filled with celebrating people. The revelry was
premature. Saddam carefully reconstituted his army, used it to crush a Muslim
revolt in the south, then turned his attention to the north. Saddam's troops soon
overwhelmed the Kurdish Peshmerga ("Those Who Face Death") fighters whose
rifles and pistols were no match for tanks, artillery, and helicopter gunships. One
by one the cities of Kurdistan fell. On 31 March 1991, the city of Zakho, the
final Kurdish bastion before the Turkish border, was bombarded by artillery fire
and strafed by helicopter gunships. When Iraqi forces neared the town, rumors
of an imminent chemical attack spread like wildfire. Most of Zakho's Kurds fled
under cover of darkness and began a difficult four-day journey to the border. For
them, to flee provided the only hope of survival.
  The lucky and the rich among them escaped into Turkish or Iranian towns,
but most could only retreat to the dubious safety of the mountains. Soon, the
barren hillsides along Iraq's borders were peopled by thirsty, starving refugees
living without shelter from the wind and bitter cold. Each night families faced
sub-freezing temperatures with a single blanket for warmth. Hunger, exhaustion,
disease, exposure, and dehydration were rampant. Water had to be ladled from
muddy potholes, melted from snow, or dipped from contaminated streams. The
situation was classified a "medical apocalypse" by the international organization
Doctors Without Borders. Measles, cholera, typhus, and~dysentery swept through
the unsanitary camps. Health care was almost non-existent. Often one doctor
served several thousand people, able to perform only the most rudimentary
surgery, without anesthetic, and unable to provide proper medication.