Iraq’s Kurds: From Flight to Freedom

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 May 2016

⏱️ 50 minutes

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Summary

Twenty-five years ago, thousands of Iraqi Kurds lost their lives as they fled the forces of Saddam Hussein into the Zagros and Taurus mountains of northern Iraq, towards Iran and Turkey. Massively outgunned, many were killed by the helicopter gunship fire and tanks at the command of Saddam’s well trained and brutal troops. BBC Middle East correspondent Jim Muir revisits the exodus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:04.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. There's another way for the bloodshed to stop, and that is for the Iraqi military
0:20.0	and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands to force Saddam Hussein, the dictator,
0:26.7	to step aside and to comply with the United Nations resolutions and then rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.
0:36.0	President George Bush Sr. speaking in February 1991
0:39.9	has his Air Force of pounding Saddam Hussein's troops to force them out of Kuwait.
0:44.8	This is the BBC World Service.
0:46.6	I'm Jim Bure with the story of Iraq's Kurds. Ten days after President Bush's exhortation, the Western Coalition launched its Desert Storm
0:58.3	campaign to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait, which they'd invaded in August 1990. The Iraqi army was crushed
1:06.4	and fled Kuwait in disarray. Southern Iraq was plunged into chaos. The Shia there
1:12.2	took matters into their own hands and rose up against Saddam Hussein, but they
1:16.8	paid a terrible price. Elite Iraqi loyalist units struck back ruthlessly against the
1:22.2	Shia and repressed their rebellion.
1:27.0	Meanwhile in northern Iraq the Kurds also rose.
1:37.0	Unlike the Shia, Iraq's Kurds now around 8 million in number are not Arabs.
1:42.0	They have their own quite different language and
1:44.9	culture. All together there are about 30 million Kurds straddling the borders
1:49.7	between Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria.
1:54.0	They've been there since biblical times.
1:56.0	They've often struggled to assert themselves in all those countries.
2:00.0	In Iraq, they were frequently in conflict with the central government.
2:05.4	Now in early 1991, after Saddam's defeat in Kuwait,
	...

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