Evacuate Kuwait
Kerning Cultures
Kerning Cultures Network
4.9 • 529 Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2021
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On August 2nd 1990, the Iraqi military invaded Kuwait City overnight, and its residents woke up to a city under occupation. The only airport was put on lockdown, and the Iraqi military set up checkpoints on the city's streets. The US, UK and Russia condemned the invasion, and some British and American citizens were taken as hostages. But the Indian government had no stake in the conflict, and around 165,000 Indian citizens living in Kuwait were caught up in a situation that didn't involve their country.
Which left the Indian government with a question they'd never had to face before: how do we evacuate tens of thousands of our citizens from a foreign country, all at once?
Today on Kerning Cultures, the story of one family's escape from Kuwait during one of the largest government evacuations in history.
This episode was written and produced by Alex Atack and Shraddha Joshi, and edited by Dana Ballout with support from Nadeen Shaker, Zeina Dowidar and Abde Amr. Fact checking by Shraddha Joshi, sound design by Alex Atack and mixing by Mohamed Khreizat. Bella Ibrahim is our marketing manager, and Kerning Cultures is a Kerning Cultures Network production.
Support this podcast on patreon.com/kerningcultures for as little as $1 a month.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The world is predictable, they've seen it happen. |
| 0:05.1 | And one story that always kind of captures my imagination. |
| 0:08.5 | The street's lost culture. |
| 0:12.7 | And you're listening to Kearning cultures. |
| 0:19.9 | The area I grew up in is this area called Fahahil. |
| 0:23.4 | It's there even today. |
| 0:25.2 | And it is not in the center of Kuwait. |
| 0:27.4 | Kuwait is a very, very small city. |
| 0:29.5 | Honestly, you can go from the center of city to the border in exactly one hour. |
| 0:34.7 | This is Ruth Desuzza Prabhu. |
| 0:36.6 | She's from Mangalore in India, but was born and |
| 0:39.1 | grew up in Kuwait City. Both of her parents worked there. Her dad was working at the Kuwait |
| 0:43.4 | National Petroleum Company and her mother at a British machinery company called Fremonite. |
| 0:48.3 | So we were living on the outskirts where the oil companies were all located since dad was working in that area. And I was |
| 0:56.7 | actually born in a clinic which was exactly opposite the apartment building that we were living in. |
| 1:02.6 | So when my mum went to deliver me, my dad could actually look out. They were not allowed to come |
| 1:07.6 | to the clinic at all when that was happening. So dad actually stood at the window. |
| 1:11.5 | Oh, how come? They're very strict out there and also because my dad was pretty chicken about it and he didn't want to be anywhere near. |
| 1:20.2 | So I was born there. Ruth was born and grew up in that same apartment. In the same building, there was another Indian family who lived on the |
| 1:28.1 | ground floor. There was also a Palestinian family in another apartment who'd sometimes babysit her |
| 1:33.4 | when her parents went out. And we had a lot of family friends from India as well as from other countries |
| 1:40.8 | as well. So we always, growing up, there were always nice dinners and lunches |
... |
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