The 346th Night of Memoir– 2

Compiled by: Leila Rostami
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2024-1-12

Note: The 346th Night of Memoir was held by the presence of the Ehya(revival) Group and members of the Holy Defense Combat Medical Institute in the Surah Hall of the Islamic Revolution Art Center on Thursday of the May 25, 2023. The narrators of this program were Sardar Ali Asghar Molla, Dr. Abdullah Saadat, Dr. Ahmed Ebadi and Dawood Khanazer. They reminisced about the Operation Beit-ol-Moqaddas (Jerusalem) and the liberation of Khorramshahr, focusing on the treatment of the wounded with minimal casualties. Dawood Salehi was in charge of this program.

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The first narrator, General Ali Asghar Molla, continued his speech through the words of Dr. Parviz Vazirian, who was in charge of the health organization of Khuzestan province at the beginning of the war. It was almost at the beginning of September that Mr. Gharazi, the governor of Khuzestan, announced to the general managers that estimates indicate that Iraq intends to attack the borders of the Islamic Republic. According to records, Khorramshahr is more vulnerable than other places. I quickly took measures in Ahvaz, then I came to Taleghani Hospital in Abadan to prepare for possible operations and admission of the wounded; but Khorramshahr was the target. There was a hospital in Khorramshahr, which some narrations called the name of this hospital as Mossadegh and others as Hazrat Vali Asr; A typical thing is that if a bullet hits it at any moment, it would go through the roof of the hospital and all the people under the roof would perish.

I said to the supervisor: suppose an injured person comes with this condition; what actions do you want to take? Two hours passed, the injured person was sick and he had to bring the surgeon, but he could not find the surgeon. Until that night, he announced to them: This injured person is missing! You don't want to do anything! The golden time to save the injured is two hours. This was an introduction to prepare Mosadegh Khorramshahr Hospital for the following days.

The narrator continued through the words of Dr. Vazirian: What we were waiting for happened. I didn't even return to Ahvaz and stayed there. The first injured was a 5-year-old child. We saw that it is not just one injured person, and the number of injured people is constantly being added. We asked the teams we had organized to come; but they did not have the speed we requested. When we saw that we were not getting anywhere, we told the late Dr. Douai and he came. He was undergoing surgery in Ahvaz and even though his family insisted that they leave Ahvaz and even he prepared to go, he refused to leave the city. He sent his family and returned himself. He stayed until the end of the war. He was one of the famous surgeons and he performed several surgeries for martyr Chamran in Golestan Hospital. Of course, other teams came little by little. Even though the hospital was under fire, the surgical teams were treating the injured. When Mr. Dr. Vazirian was brought to Khorramshahr, because the main pressure was there, he stayed in Khorramshahr and left Ahvaz work to his deputies. He directed the preparation of other places such as Sosangerd, Bostan, Shush, etc. from here.

The narrator added from the words of Dr. Vazirian: I was in Khorramshahr when, in the first week of the war, they once announced that the Minister of Health, who was Dr. Manafi at that time, would come to Khorramshahr with a team of about 40 people. Khorramshahr had not yet fallen. First they came to Abadan and then coordinated with me. I said that we cannot take this population under fire to this city, so we reduced the population. Mr. Dr. Manafi came with his deputies, Dr. Kalanter Motamed, Dr. Marandi and other managers who were there. It was not possible to take all of them to the hospital. Some stayed and some left. Even at the time of leaving, there was so much fire that we had to walk in some parts.

When we say that Khorramshahr has not yet fallen, it does not mean that its surroundings and its buildings had not fallen either. East of Khorramshahr, which is a river. The north and west of Khorramshahr were completely surrounded. The only way to travel was the bridge that leads to Abadan. The bridge was heavily under fire from the Iraqis. Dr. Vazirian said: »We came back after the visit with all the effort, and the minister, Mr. Dr. Manafi, decided to define an alternative hospital.« Because we could not work in Mossadegh Hospital. We saw several places. There was a hospital in Darkhovin that was originally for the nuclear energy project. They are still working and the French built them for themselves. It seemed that the situation was more suitable, but when the team and the health and treatment staff that was in Khorramshahr, both from Mossadegh Hospital and other places, came and settled, they realized that they could not use it there.

We came to Ahvaz to bring back the minister's team and his deputies. Mr. Minister said that Darkhovin Hospital is not a suitable place and find another place. Before reaching Ahvaz, they informed us that Khorramshahr is on the verge of falling. Dr. Manafi said: The least we can do is to evacuate the forces and specifically dismantle the equipment and facilities of the hospital. Because these facilities are needed after all. I told them that we cannot go with all these people. We were about four or five people. I, Mr. Minister and a few others who were a bit more combative returned to Khorramshahr with a blazer.

The fire had become more intense on the side of the Mossadegh hospital and the Iraqis had almost approached the hospital. We went with all the effort. I said to Dr. Manafi: My field is health and prevention and I am not a surgeon. I don't know which hospital equipment is more valuable. Because we can't take everyone, you are a surgeon yourself, come forward. We will come behind you and help you. When we came to the door of the hospital, we saw a truck in front of the door of the hospital. We thought that the Iraqis would not come to take the equipment. When we went further, we saw a person named Dr. Shahidzadeh from the children in charge of Jihad health and treatment committee of Khuzestan province, who was originally from Behbahan. He said: I feel sorry for this equipment to stay here. At the last minute I brought a car to collect the equipment. Then he asked: So you and who came? I said: I have come, above me, his minister has also come to collect the equipment here. He could not believe that someone would come in this situation! Dr. Shahidzadeh was later martyred.

In short, Dr. Manafi and those people helped us and we loaded the equipment we could on a truck and transferred it to Abadan and then to Mahshahr and to the hospital center that was for petrochemical facilities. Many of the war victims of Khorramshahr settled in Mahshahr. Some of the Khoramshahri people still live in Mahshahr. Of course, let me remind you that when Khorramshahr fell, the line did not fall. On this side were the troops. It was a war, he was injured, and Abadan's Taleghani Hospital was a field hospital, that is, as the modern people say, a field hospital. All the injured were brought to that hospital. There were volunteer teams where doctors and nurses each have memories of the first days or weeks of the war.

In the continuation of the quote, the narrator narrated a memory of a warehouse official and said: Dr. Vazirian says, there was a person who was in charge of the warehouse, or as the modern people say, he was a collector of property. He was an Arab. All medical personnel of the hospital had already been transferred; but he was the only one who remained in the hospital. Whenever we urged him to go, sir, he said: Where should I go? This is all my handover property, can I just leave it here and go? No matter how much we insisted that the conditions of the war were like this and that the city was falling, he did not believe. He even thought that he should be the guardian of the property as the head of the property, so he stayed and was captured. After the end of the war and seven-eight years of captivity, he was released and returned to Iran.

The 346th Night of Memoir– 1

To be continued…