SABAH (63)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami
Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

2021-06-08

SABAH (63)

Memoirs of Sabah Vatankhah

Interviewed and Compiled by Fatemeh Doustkami

Translated by Natalie Haghverdian

Published by Soore Mehr Publishing Co.

Persian Version 2019

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Chapter Fourteen

Since the date that the aid team had been stationed in Karevansara hotel, it had lost its actual effectiveness and dynamic. Due to the large distance between the hotel and the front lines, no injured was brought there to be attended. The team members were also very confused and cluttered. Before that, meaning before the fall of Khorramshahr we were all active and we did not waste even one second of our times.

We were rendering services all the time both when we were in mosque and in Dr. Sheybani’s office. We distributed the aid people had sent, attended the injured soldiers and transferred them to hospital, identified and classified the medication or prepared our aid supplies … but what about now?

Although I had been able to reach Zolfaghari front but my heart was with my friends at the hotel. Many of them expressed their wish to go to the front. We had to think of something. If we wanted to continue our aid work we had to move from the hotel. We had stayed in the front to help others and if this was not the case, we had to move out of Abadan and Khuzestan like many others.

I went to Zolfaghari front for the second time with Elaheh and aid team. I insisted a lot and Alivand gave permission to take her with me. We passed the Oil Company and entered Abadan and Khosro-Abad from there. We passed Khosro-Abad barrack and passed brick kilns. We had to pass a check point to pass the Khosro-Abad barrack area. We needed the secret password; a password that only Alivand in our group knew it. He was somehow the head of aid team. We went to front line in his or Ghasem Farrokhi’s company.

Then we entered the Zolfaghari palm groves and joined our fighters. The clashes were tense. We took position besides our forces and started to fight and progress with them shoulder to shoulder like a fighter. The clash took around two hours. The Iraqis targeted the area non-stop. It was obvious that they are determined to siege Abadan. During these two hours, there was no need for aid services and we just continued to keep our position and progress.

Around noon the fire became less. I was thinking about my friends. In the morning when we were ready to leave, they had requested me to do something that they could also come to the front. I went to Ghasem Farrokhi in a suitable timeslot and told him that the girls in the aid team are very willing to move from Karevansara to a location near front. They would be able to serve better here. I told him a bit about our activities in Khorramshahr. He responded; “I will try to do something for them.”

About one hour later, Ghasem Farrokhi came and said: “I have talked about this issue with the fighters. One of them said that one of their relatives has a house in Zolfagharieh and we can use it as a base for aid sisters.”

Then he continued: “Let us go and have a look at the house.”

Me, Elaheh, Ghasem Farrokhi and Lak went to have a look at the house. The house was in Zolfaghari buildings and at the edge of palm groves; a house around one hundred square meters with a yard of twenty thirty square meters, with a big parking door. When we entered the yard, there was a toilet on the left side and a small rectangle shape empty pool in the middle.

The house had a balcony which Khuzestani people called a Tarmeh which led to a hall. When we went in, the picture on the wall, made us feel better. The landlord had placed a beautiful photo and frame of Imam on the wall. When I saw the picture, I smiled and felt relieved from the fatigue I had endured in the last days. What a good place we had come.

The hall had four doors: one for kitchen, one for bathroom and the other two for two small rooms which were about twelve square meters each. All the furniture was in place; carpets, beds, closets for clothes were also untouched.

It was a clean house. It was obvious that the landlord’s wife had been a real housewife. All the frames around the wall, notebooks and books of children were placed neatly in a corner of the room, the kitchen utensils, all in all made us sad. It was obvious that there had been a beautiful life in this house before the war. Since the doors and windows of the house had been closed, there was not much dust inside.

I looked at a pile of books in the corner of the room. There were two piles; books for first and fourth primary grade. I opened one of them and inhaled deeply and sent the scent of the book in my chest. For one instance I remembered that I had to be studying if the war had not happened, I felt moved. Who thought that we would be welcoming the first day of school like this!

When we came out of the house, Ghasem Farrokhi said that they wanted to move the men of aid team to the next house. With this arrangement, we won’t be obliged to commute between the house and Caravanserai.

It was around sunset. Elaheh, Ghasem Farrokhi, Lak and I started walking towards Caravanserai hotel. We had no car. We had to walk. We hoped that a car would spot us in the mid-way and take us. After around one hour of walking, a car appeared on the road which was going to Abadan. We got in and reached hotel.

At the hotel, I told Fouziyeh and Shahnaz that we have found a suitable place in Zolfaghari and we are intending to move there as our base. Shahnaz asked: “Sabbah do you have any news from Ali?” I said: “No! I saw army members in Khosro-Abad. I did not like their behavior. All those, whom I knew, did not treat me well and did not greet me nicely. I don’t know why they over reacted?! Our parents are in agreement with our decision, but they are not happy that we have stayed! I wanted to ask them about Ali but I did not dare.”

Nineteenth of second month of autumn coincided with first day of Moharram. This year’s Moharram was very different from last years’ ceremonies. Every year, on the first night of Moharram, my mother gave us our black dresses to wear. There was a Hosseyniyeh near our house. On the first day of Moharram, we went to Hosseyniyeh and covered it in black.

One year, my mother had a wish and made a vow to that Hosseyniyeh. When her wish came true, she ordered a board for Hosseyniyeh; a board on which it was written: “Hazrate Zahra Hosseyniyeh.” On the first night of Moharram, we recited Ashoura pilgrimage with team members in Karevansara hotel. While reciting Ashoura pilgrimage, I had a strange feeling. All the martyrs’ faces I had seen, came in front of my eyes one by one. Our war was very similar to what had happened in Ashoura. The oppression of our martyrs was no less than the oppression of Imam Hossein followers.

Next night, Dr. Sa’adat and Ghasem Farrokhi helped us to pack our aid supplies. We wanted to move them to our new base. Among the girls, Belgheys, Ashraf, Elaheh and I wanted to go to Zolfaghari with the group and station in our new base. Ms. Akbari, Mehrangiz and Keshvar were supposed to follow us after we were located. We were supposed to go to front during the day and those who did not want to return to hotel, could stay in the base. We did not want to live in our new base at first but the night before we had heard that one of the team members had been wounded with a shrapnel in the evening in Zolfaghari front and had been martyred due to severe bleeding. They told that the clashes were so heavy that his comrades had not had the chance to stop the bleeding.

I felt terrible when I heard the news. Why should a young man lose his life because there had been no aid worker like me to stop the bleeding and attend the wound! Most of the fighters did not know how to bandage a wound and stop the bleeding.

Some others knew but they did not have the time to do it during the clashes. As they said by the time they had intended to get him to hospital, he had died. Even if I had one percent of doubt about my being in the front line until that moment, my doubt disappeared as soon as I heard this news. I had to be definitely in front line and attend to the injured.

We mounted the aid equipment into a pick-up and moved towards Zolfaghari along with a group of Fadaieyan Islam forces who wanted to deliver water and food to the front-line soldiers. Masoud Paki, Hamid Khoshnud and some other members of Abouzar group came with us too.

We did not go through the previous route, meaning that we did not go from brick kilns side. Since our forces had moved forward and pushed back Iraqis from Zolfaghari to rear of Bahman-Shir, Zolfaghari route towards the city had been opened and we did not need to go around. After passing the first line[1] and Ahmad Abad village, we also passed Bolhassani[2] water tankers and reached Khosro-Abad. Military police stopped us and asked for passing code. Fadaieyan Islam forces members knew the passing code. We entered Khosro-Abad and after passing through it, we turned towards Zolfaghari and its palm groves. We walked towards the house that we had marked before. We put our equipment there and exited.

 

To be continued …

 

 
Number of Visits: 2810

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