Archives

BAGHDAD, Sunday (Reuters) - Two Iraqi brothers made their home a prison for 23 years to escape execution by Saddam Hussein's Security Forces, seeing daylight only after his fall.

Their mother Zahra Ibrahim lived in terror while hiding her sons Saad and Ibrahim. Any mistake would have been fatal. She endured repeated interrogation and constant surveillance by security men looking for the two boys. Her husband, pregnant daughter and another son had already been executed as suspected members of the Shi'ite Muslim Daawa Party.

"For 23 years I lived in fear and anxiety. My tears never dried until Saddam was toppled," Zahra, 67, told Reuters at her humble home in a crowded quarter of Baghdad. Zahra hid her sons in a room inside the house, keeping the secret even from her closest relatives. She managed to convince the Security Forces they were in Iraqi jails.

In 1989, a bureaucratic slip-up helped Zahra's cause: the security forces told her all her detained relatives, including Saad and Ibrahim, had been executed.

Ibrahim showed documents taken from security headquarters after Saddam's overthrow which list them among those executed in 1989 for belonging to the "criminal" Daawa party.

But the harassment at Zahra's house never stopped.

"We never left home. The first time we ventured into the garden at night was in 1996. We were afraid the neighbours would see us and report us to the Scurity Forces," Ibrahim said.

The two men, now 45 and 39, whiled away the years reading religious books and talking to their mother and four sisters. Only the five women and a neighbour, a close family friend, were in on the secret.

"My sisters' children did not even know our names. They only knew us as uncles. Saad decided to disappear in 1980 and Ibrahim joined him two years later. They said they had never belonged to the Daawa party. Their family was punished because two uncles were charged with links to Daawa during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.Ibrahim was a high school student and Saad a public sector employee when they went into hiding.

"Security men dropped by the house all the time. They did not search it, but sat in the living room and asked about my sons' whereabouts. I insisted they were in jail along with my husband, son and daughter," Zahra said. She said she often went to the prison to ask about her detained relatives, always inquiring about her sons who were in fact at home, and was frequently summoned for interrogation at security headquarters.

The brothers finally emerged from hiding a week after Saddam's fall on April 9, when they were sure U.S. forces had really conquered Iraq.

"Freedom is so very important. I can't express the feelings that overwhelmed me when I finally went out on the streets. My old friends were shocked when they saw me," Ibrahim said.

www.crescat.com

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries |

Produced by Lake House
Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager