Halabja & Ahmadawa Waterfalls

Planning the day

Today I wanted to go to Halabja and Ahmadawa waterfalls near to it.  Manouk from Netherlands wanted to go to Halabja but wasn’t fussed about the waterfalls.  But she really wanted to go to Amna Suraka first.

Over my breakfast of tea and local pastries we checked with Shah by phone, who said that it should be possible to go to Amna Suraka then Halabja without any concerns that it would be too late to find transport back to Sulaymaniyah.  So Manouk and I agreed to go together.

Amna Suraka

We took a taxi to Amna Suraka getting there around the opening time of 0900.  Amna Suraka is a museum on the site of Saddam Hussein’s prison and torture centre.  The entrance to the main building inside the complex is called the Hall of Mirrors.  It is a 50m narrow hallway lined by 182000 shards of mirrors, one for every victim of Saddam’s Annfal campaign. The ceiling has 4500 lights, one for every Kurdish village destroyed by Saddam.  What a beautiful memorial to such an ugly piece of history.  From here the beauty fades away quickly.  There were prison cells and torture chambers.

Moving to the other buildings, there were lots of photographic accounts of the atrocities committed against Kurds by the past Iraqi government.  A newer addition to the museum was the section about ISIS, ISIL or Daesh.  A large part of the building was dedicated to the fallen, with their names and photos.

Next, one of the staff opened up a gallery dedicated to the peshmergas, the military force of Iraqi Kurdistan (they Iraqi military do not operate within Kurdistan).  They are very much glorified here and also in the West due to press exposure, in particular with their women fighters.

Lastly, we went into a cartoon-like gallery dedicated to the Kurdish struggle.  It wasn’t really my cuppa tea but I wandered briefly around the exhibits as the artist was there!

The various buildings within the Amna Suraka complex are pockmarked from the fighting during the struggle against the government.  There were military equipment such as tanks in the courtyard as well.

With refugees streaming in from Syria escaping from Turkish attacks, we saw stockpile of clothing waiting to be forwarded on.  For the first time in Iraqi Kurdistan, I saw 1.5 litre bottles of water.  The largest available that I’ve seen are only 500ml and I find that really inconvenient.

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Continuing to Halabja

Around 1100 we took a taxi to the taxi station where we could find transport to Halabja.  Then it got confusing.  The drivers asked me if I wanted New Halabja, Old Halabja or Halabja Shahid.  I didn’t know, but I knew we wanted to go to the monument and the cemetery.  Somehow or other, they thought we should go to Halabja Shahid for which there was a van and also a taxi available.

We opted for the taxi and were off pretty promptly.  The journey took over an hour.  Around midday, we were dropped off at the Halabja monument, which commemorates the victims of a chemical attack by Saddam Hussein and Chemical Ali against the Kurdish people on 16 March 1988.

We were given a guided tour through the side rooms around the main memorial.  The dioramas were OK but some of the photographic evidence was stomach-churning.

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Asking the guide for lunch recommendations, we were sent to possibly the best restaurant in town.  We weren’t exactly starving so ordered a chicken and a beef kebab to share.  But they brought us a chicken and a beef each.  I happily ate it all despite not being that hungry, because it was delicious.

Asking for directions to the Halabja cemetery, the manager asked one of the waiters to drive us there in his own car.  That was very kind of him, so we were glad we didn’t send back the extra meal from the misunderstood order.

At the cemetery, we didn’t think were at the right place.  There was a sign warning Bath party member (illegal anyway) to keep out.  So that should indicate that we’re on the right track. Walking further in, we found the mass graves and the neatly-laid out individual headstones for people who had been successfully identified.  5000 people were killed in less than 30 minutes and 7000 injured.

On the way out, we saw one mass grave where we had been dropped off.  Strange that we missed it completely!  That completes our day of depressing sights, first a Amna Suraka and secondly at Halabja.

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Ahmadawa Waterfalls

We hailed a taxi to take us to Ahmadawa waterfalls near the border with Iran.  The really old driver gave a price of IQD15000 (USD13) for the 30 min ride.  But when he got to the edge of town, he stopped and asked another driver to take us.  The second driver was friendly and chatty.

The road went uphill towards the end and got rough between good sections.  That seems to be typical in Kurdistan.  We parked and walked up a long series of steps that led to the waterfalls.  The place was dead being a week day.

It was a nice-enough sight, perhaps Bekha waterfalls near Rawandiz was nicer.  The driver came along with us for the walk.   I found it surprising that he had never been here, because he knew a lot of the people lower down the hill suggesting that he is somewhat local to the area.

The weather was turning grey.  I wanted to get going back before the rain.  Contrary to Shah’s advice to hitchhike to Khurmal, the driver took us for IQD3000 (USD2.50).  It was so quiet, we wouldn’t have been able to find anyone.

We got dropped off at Khurmal’s taxi garage around 1530.  The wind was howling and it started drizzling.  We waited for around an hour for the last seat to fill in the taxi.  The driver gave up and went with one empty seat only to pick up an extra person not far from the garage.

We were back in the city around 1730 and were lucky enough to be dropped off near the bazaar.  I wasn’t hungry hungry yet but it was just convenient to eat and then not have to leave the hotel again later.

I had my first taste of rice in a long time tonight, ordering a quarter chicken together with some sides of stewed beans and stewed potatoes.  While I love kebabs and bread, I was very pleased to have my rice again!

Ahmadawa waterfalls. It’s bigger and higher than it looks in the picture.