SABAH (64)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2021-6-15

SABAH (64)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami

Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

Published by Soore Mehr Publishing Co.

Persian Version 2019

While going towards Zolfaghari, we had to pass a creek full of mud. One day, when we were going there, I jumped over that creek using a long stick. Elaheh and Ashraf also followed me. Among us, only Belgheys was a bit fat and calm and her movements were slow. When she saw the wideness of the creek, she placed her G3 in the creek and used it as a cane and jumped. When we saw what Belgheys did, we all laughed. It was an interesting initiative. She did not want to seem week and also wait for somebody to help her. I pointed to her gun and said: “Belgheys, it is good that you have brought your stick along! It was useful here!”

It seemed that Belgheys did not like my comment and my laughter. She frowned and said: “What is wrong with what I did? I jumped using it!”

When we jumped to the other side of the creek, a soldier from Lorestan, shouted with Lori accent: “Viva Iranian brave women, well done!”

Ghasem Farrokhi who was a few meters away and had seen the jumping scene of Belgheys with the gun, approached us and told Belgheys with a joking and laughing tone: “Now that you have jumped with this stick, at least put it on your shoulder and walk. Imagine that you are carrying a shovel!”

We placed our equipment in the headquarters. We were going to exit the headquarters that we heard Iraqi airplanes. The flight of Iraqi MiG and planes which targeted important parts of Abadan such as hospitals and oil refinery was non-stop. An individual could go crazy by thinking that the bombs pouring from these plans would fall on what building and fill it with blood and dust. The atmosphere became convulsive and heavy when the planes approached.

I had a small cream colored radio which operated with battery and could connect to three radio waves. Many aid workers or soldiers had one of these small radios. We constantly waited to hear the new messages from imam. When we were in Khorramshahr, everything was happening so fast and we were constantly helping and attending to the injured, that we did not have the chance to focus and listen to the radio but nowadays and with the situation we were in, it was as if our only hope was to hear his voice and message. We felt so reliant with his presence that was not equal to any other force or weapon.

As we were not soldiers or fighters, therefore we did not have a specific commander to give us orders. We always considered Imam as our direct commander and obeyed his orders. We were constantly listening to radio. We looked for new words or orders from him on different waves of the radio. We did not want to hear his words late. We heard his orders and followed them as much as we could. We owed our resistance up to this point to Imam.

Besides this issue, the war was not happening only in Khuzestan. The war zone extended from North west of Iran to the lowest point in Khuzestan. I wanted to know how much the enemy has progressed. Besides Khorramshahr, other cities such as Ghasre Shirin, Sare Pole Zahab, Bostan, Susangerd and Dehlaviyeh were also sieged by the enemy. The Iraqi forces had been able to progress a few thousand square kilometers into Iran. While I was in the headquarter waiting for the situation to become clear, I tried different waves of the radio to see if I will hear any new news or not. There was nothing. The clashes continued.

When the airplanes left, we went inside the palm groves and we reached the front line. We were still in the rear of Bahman Shir River. A few soldiers had been wounded. Thanks God their situation was not grave and we could attend to them and bandage their wounds. The clashes continued. We spent one magazine while they spent ten magazines and a few RPG and cannon shots but most of their shots were without any specific target and targeted the palms mostly.

A few days later, on the twenty seventh of second month of autumn, was Tasooa day. We were in front line. We took a small Mafatih from the closet of the house which had become our headquarters. When the voices and explosions decreased, we opened our Mafatih and started whispering the Ashoora pilgrimage. During the past few nights, we had been connected to Aba Abdollah with a small appeal. During our prayers, we prayed for the health and long life of Imam at first and then for our fighters and soldiers. We constantly remembered Moharrams of previous years. Last year, we had all gathered and mourned with our families. We read Fatiha  for all the soldiers that we knew and had been martyred from Revolution to date.

We remembered Mahmoud Farrokhi and his comments, Shahnaz Haji Shah and her nice decency. We remembered Mehdi Alboughabish, an active young man who did not calm down for one second during the victory of the revolution. Mehdi did not miss one second for coordinating the marches and demonstrations. We remembered Hassan Mojtahed Zadeh and the terrible torture he had endured. Martyr Sheikh Sharif, a clergyman and warrior who stood by us and resisted in Khorramshahr. Their places were empty besides us.

I wish I could hear from my family. I had no access to them. I just knew that my mother and children were in Borujerd and my father has been transferred to Mahshahr. I missed them so much. I just felt content since there were away from war zone and danger.

Along with other girls, I returned to our base in the evening. My feet hurt. I had done a lot during the past few days; specially the foot that had shrapnel in it. I had not taken good care of it and walked on it as much as I could. I was not feeling well. I felt that I had to rest if I wanted to stay there and be with the others. Therefore, the next day, I did not go to front and stayed in the base.

I took one paper from the notebooks of the children of the owner of the house. I drew a painting with pen. My painting skills were good since childhood. When I was holder, I became interested in sketching and did a few sketches once in a while. I drew the sketch of a palm tree; one of the thousand palms which existed in Zolfaghari. Palm tree, was the symbol of resistance for me; those palms that had stood like a man and had been a shelter for the fighters; palms that the cannon balls took the upper part of it, but they stood and did not bend. There was a reason why they were calculated as a person. They were one of the most similar plants to human. When we were in palm groves, I really felt that they felt our pains.

I colored the palm tree with lots of concentration. It was a beautiful sketch. I drew a sunshade under the palm. My painting was really. In Zolfaghari, the farmers made sunshades using the branches of palm trees and the palm leaves which had a dry and guipure like structure. The fighters used these sunshades as a camouflage tool and shot the Iraqis while inside. The enemy did not have a sight over the sunshades. The image of these sunshades had been in my mind. I folded my painting and put it in my bag[1].

There was a strange atmosphere in base that night. It was the first Ashoura night that we had no Rowzeh recitation. We felt the roving of Imam Hossein and his followers with all our hearts while being in Khomeini Karbala. The followers of Khomeini, like the followers of Seyed ol Shohada, defended while being attacked by the full armed army of Yazid and had nothing except their hope in God and the route they were dying for. We were also bare handed and alone just like our master.

Each year, during these days, our house was full of reverberation. My mom invited a Rowzeh reciter during the first ten days of Moharram. They called her “Molayeh” in our district. Molayeh was a forty years old woman who was invited to houses to read Rowzeh. It was a nice ceremony. Molayeh had a nice and sad voice. Her sad voice could melt a stone. She read in Arabic. After the Rowzeh, all women stood around the room in our house and mourning along with a monody sung by Molayeh. We were not permitted to stand in the first row during the ceremony. That row belonged to the elderly women. After the Rowzeh all guests were served tea with saffron, tea with cinnamon and milk and dates.

My father bought two sheep for Ashoura and sacrificed them. One or two days before, meaning the seventh day, when my brother Jasem cooked his votive and distributed it among the neighbors, they all came to our house and helped my mother for the votive of Ashoura day. The women in our neighborhood came to our house and each did something. My mother usually cooked mince stew. A few prepared the rice and split peas, some sliced potatoes and some chopped the meat.

By remembering these moments, I started crying. I cursed Saddam and wished from the bottom of my heart that this was will be over soon and we would all return to our homes and living.

In the evening of Ashoura Ghasem and his father, Haj Ali Farrokhi, came to base. They both returned from front. After the martyrdom of Mahmoud, Mr. Farrokhi did not leave Ghasem along. Father and son fought in Zolfaghari besides each other. Ghasem said: “Sister Sabbah! Last night the army forces of Abadan and construction Jihad of Fars and Abadan made a floating bridge over Bahman-Shir and went to the other side of the river. The bridge was so good and solid that they could pass vehicles and equipment to the other side too.”

We were all very happy to hear the news of the bridge. If we did not make that bridge, we could not progress further. We appreciated these progresses well since we had bitter memories of war in the streets and backstreets of Khorramshahr in our mind and all our efforts turned to failure.

Ghasem Farrokhi continued: “There was a big Karbala in front line. The Iraqi artillery was furious of our progress and hit the area non-stop and without a moment of break. Instead of shooting hundreds of mortar bombs in one hour, it was shooting five hundred. They were doing whatever they could to return to their previous position but could not succeed due to the full resistance of our forces.”

To be continued …