Anbar camp

One of the detention camps of Iranian prisoners.

The city of Ramadi, which is located 110 kilometers west of Baghdad on the Euphrates River, was the location of several Iranian prisoners of war camps. One of these camps was the third camp known as "Amber".

Reason for naming

Two months after the start of the war, the Ramadi camp (→ camp) was established in a garrison lying on the outskirts of Ramadi, and nine months later, the Anbar camp, which was previously supported by several military battalions, was set up in the same garrison.As the name of this camp was not similar to the other camps of Ramadi in Iraq, it was named Alanbar in proportion to the relevant province.  After a while, when the Red Cross went to the camp to register the prisoners, it used the word Anbar for the name of the camp; Since the Arabs pronounce the long vowel "A" with a short vowel "A", they called this camp "Anbar" and the Iranian prisoners called this camp "Anbar" among themselves due to the familiarity of the words Anbar and Oud.

Geographical and architectural characteristics

Each camp in the Ramadi region was divided into three or four blocs. Anbar camp was also divided into three blocs and the prisoners of each bloc were forbidden to meet. The camp was surrounded by a circular ring of barbed wire with a width of 15 to 17 meters and a height of 160 cm, and before the barbed wire, a fence with a height of 3.5 meters was installed. There were several common places between the three blocs, including the kitchen, infirmary, a store, a prison, and a garbage container. Each block  consisted of eight barracks on two floors, and 55 to 72 captives lived in each barrack. The private space for each person was about half a meter. Each barrack had ten windows on both sides with a height of 140 cm and a width of 120 cm. In the last few years, they blocked the light from reaching the barrack with blocks, and only 20 cm above the window was opened; The middle part of the window was fixed and the two sides of the window were opened, while it was surrounded by nets and iron fences. In the middle of the barrack, a corridor with a width of 170 cm was designed to come and go.

There were seven public toilets in the first bloc, which were used by 460 people when they were outside the camp. In the corridor of the toilets, there were several taps for washing hands. Next to the entrance to the WCs, there was a booth (room) that the guards used during the day. A bathroom with an area of 9 meters with four showers and a dressing room with an area of 6 meters were at the disposal of the captives. Every 10 captives in a week used hot water for 15 minutes at the same time with four showers and very little water. After the prisoners' protest, eleven bathrooms with an area of 1.5 meters were built out of blocks, which were used individually and were known as single bathrooms and had only cold water.

The yard was about 1,400 square meters, part of which was only for walking and other parts for playing football, volleyball, and basketball. A room was used as a barbershop, and one of the prisoners spent a few hours a week cutting the prisoners' hair. For this, he had a pair of scissors, a comb, and a manual shaving machine at his disposal.A room had also been allocated to tailoring with  the difference that it got busy  every six months that the Iraqis gave clothes to the prisoners, so that the tailor had to spend  a week measuring the clothes. The last part of the bloc had two rooms on the first floor and two rooms on the second floor, and the upper two rooms were used as storage for Iraqi soldiers. At the end of each barrack, there was a library, which was actually a recess in the wall, within which the Iraqis had built book-shelves and turned it into a library

. The International Red Cross prepared a number of textbooks on such subjects as mathematics, physics, chemistry and English for the prisoners.

Important places of the camp

Kitchen

The building in the middle of the camp was used  the kitchen. During the first few months since the establishment of Camp Anbar ( Camp 8), the Iraqi forces cooked themselves, but due to the poor quality of the food and at the request of the prisoners, the Iraqi forces allowed the Iranian prisoners to cook themselves. All the cooks, who  were not from the same ward,  would leave the barrack half an hour before the morning counting to prepare breakfast, so that after breakfast they would cook lunch, and in the afternoon, when they were inside, they started preparing dinner. For a while, they used rubber and wood from ammunition boxes as fuel  to cook food, and due to the large amount of smoke caused by burning and the protest of Iranian prisoners, the  Red Cross had convinced the Iraqis to provide oil for the kitchen.

Infirmary

In Anbar Camp (→ Amber Camp (Camp 8), one of the barracks had been allocated to the infirmary. Several Iranian doctors, who were captured, lived in the infirmary and treated other prisoners. Dr. Majid Jalalvand ,one of the doctors of the Islamic Republic Army, who was a captive in this camp, despite all the restrictions, rendered great services to the prisoners wholeheartedly. One can also make mention of other Iranian doctors such as Dr. Paknejad, Dr. Khaleghi, and Dr. Irshad. Of course, this clinic lacked in basic medical facilities, such as oxygen capsules, painkillers, etc., and because of this, the sick prisoners always suffered a lot of pain. Except for the patients who had had a spinal amputation,(actually they were exchanged in1985) the other patients recovered within a short while and returned to their barracks thanks to the caring efforts of Iranian doctors.  An Iraqi doctor came to the camp two days a week and examined one patient from each barrack; of course, he was a general practitioner and could not do much when it came to specific and complex diseases.

pharmacy

Inside the camp, there was a room called pharmacy and on the days when the Iraqi doctor was busy examining the patients in the camp, the pharmacy delivered medicine to the patients. Of course, most of the drugs in this small pharmacy included painkillers and antibiotics, and even that in a very small quantity.

Store

According to the Geneva Convention, which was developed in the years after the Second World War in support of prisoners of war, the country holding the prisoners must pay a sum of money to the prisoners every month, and by establishing stores in the camps, the prisoners, in addition to receiving quotas, legal and free services (food, clothing, etc.) should be able to buy and provide some other necessities. The salary of Iranian prisoners during the war years was 1.5 dinars, equivalent to about 40  tomans in iran. This money included 30 sheets of 50 fils, which were given to Iranian prisoners in the form of colored and printed sheets or bills so that they could buy items for themselves from the store. Hanut  was a shop or store   a room where the Iraqi shop-keeper brought goods there once a week to sell to Iranian prisoners. These items included toothbrushes, milk powder, thread, needles, toothpaste, etc. (→ Anbar camp facilities)

Solitary confinement

Among the common places in Anbar camp (→ Anbar camp (Camp 8), there was a solitary prison with an area of eight square meters, which was located on the eastern side behind Ward 3, and communication with prisoners was strictly prohibited. Usually, violations for which one might be flung into a prison  were: performing collective praying, singing hymns, saying prayers, holding educational classes, meeting more than three people, having pen and paper, writing about topics in reply to letters received from Iran that were found suspicious by the Iraqis and so on. .. (← solitary confinement)

Responsibilities

Responsibilities in the camp were divided into two groups, open and hidden. The nominal officials were appointed and controlled by the functionary of the barrack, and the hidden officials were appointed and managed by the internal functionary. The forbidden responsibilities were carried out far from the eyes of the Iraqis, and in case of detection, heavy punishment followed. These responsibilities included the following:

a) Managerial: internal functionaries and spiritual political leaders;

b) Management of religious affairs: praying, eulogy of the prophet and his family members, holding collective praying;

c) Management of cultural affairs: plays, hymns, interior design;

d) Management of information and intelligence: news, protection, security;

e) Management of health affairs: The pharmacist in charge of pharmacy;

f) Management of educational affairs: literacy, principles, beliefs, Islamic codes.

Political and religious leadership: The political, religious, and cultural affairs of the barracks were monitored by the political and religious manager, and all policies were determined by him. This type of management was done secretly;lest it might be  detected by spies. The first manager was appointed spontaneously and by public acceptance, and the next managers (in case of identification and transfer) were appointed by a council of elders. These people were faithful captives, bound to the Islamic Republic, and had sufficient discernment and insight.

Internal functionary: Like the leadership of the ward, he was responsible for the political, cultural, educational and social affairs of the barrack. He started his activity once he was elected by the captives of the barrack, but the Iraqis did not know about him. The inner functionary was considered the first person in the barrack, and the outer functionary was completely in harmony with him.

The camp functionary: He was the highest person who could communicate directly with the Iraqis and coordinate the affairs of the three blocs of the camp. The functionary of the camp was not involved in trivial matters and was only in charge of general matters such as coordination of the functionaries for meetings with the commander of the camp, representatives of the Red Cross, keeping track of the problems and needs of the camp.

The ward functionary: He was the representative of the prisoners in the ward, and his duties were to communicate with the Iraqis to coordinate matters, to communicate continuously with the camp functionary, to attend the meeting of the camp commander and to convey the demands of the prisoners and things of that ilk ..

The barrack functionary: like the functionary of the ward, he was appointed in the first years and some time later was elected by the prisoners and approved of by the Iraqis, and he usually performed tasks that were unimpeded by the Iraqis, such as coordinating with the functionary of the ward, attending the meeting of the camp commander, receiving letters from the Red Cross and delivering the letters to the letter recipient, coordinating to regulate the process of gathering statistical information, monitoring those in charge of cleaning, cooking food, boiling water, etc.

Elections were conducted in two ways:

A) The election of ward functionaries or barracks functionaries, which was held at certain times by the order of the Iraqis.

b) Election of the internal functionary of barracks, which was done without the knowledge of the Iraqis.

Along with these big and important responsibilities, there were also smaller responsibilities, which, of course, were important and even effective per se; for instance:

- Those in charge of food who received  food in a Qasea (a container holding food for 10 captives).

- The person in charge of getting tea from the kitchen in a 10-liter bucket and distributing  it among the prisoners.

- The cook of the barrack, who knew pretty well how to cook and, made changes to the food in the kitchen with the help of an oil lamp to make it taste better.

- The person in charge of boiling water, who went  to the kitchen with a 6-liter bucket  as soon as he heard the boiling water whistle , and returned to the barrack escorted by the Iraqis, he usually hid the bucket under some blankets so that the boiling water inside would take a longer time to cool.

- The person in charge of sports was involved in team formation in the field of football and creating teams for those interested in volleyball and other fields in the camp.

- The newspaper man  received newspapers from the Iraqis and returned them the next day as good as new.

The aforementioned responsibilities were voluntary and most of them were   unstable and changed hands.

Important events

1. On February 4^th,1983, the Iraqi soldiers sent a number of informants with new clothes and looking quite presentable to the yard of the second bloc and gave them  backgammon and playing-cards so that they could stand in front of Iraqi radio and television cameras and reporters. . After some time, a number of reporters and photographers entered the camp and went to the second bloc to prepare reports, photos and videos from this show. In order to disrupt this game, the  prisoners of second bloc attacked journalists and cameramen with soap, shoes and slippers; They broke one or two cameras and disrupted the show. At this time, the commander of the camp fired a volley of shots above the heads with his shut-gun, and after that, the Iraqi soldiers too at first opened a volley of shots upwards, but then to force the captive to go inside the barracks they pointed their guns downwards.  In this conflict, many prisoners were beaten and one person lost an eye. The prisoners took advantage of the chaos and punched and kicked some Iraqi soldiers. Following these clashes, the Baathists decided to detain the prisoners of the second bloc in their barracks, without food and water for several days. Therefore, they did not feed them that night. The next morning, the representatives of all the prisoners (blocs 1 and 3 along with the officers and female captives) went to the Iraqi officer and threatened that if the restrictions imposed on the captives of the second bloc were not removed, they would also go on a hunger strike. The Baathists called the prisoners to get food, but all captives ignored them. Seeing the above situation, the commander of the camp gave in to the demands of the prisoners and canceled the restrictions for the second bloc . Following the events that took place in this camp in the previous days, on the eve of the Islamic festivity Fetr in 1983, the commander of the camp named Major Mofid entered the camp with a number of soldiers and took four or five captives out of each barrack and into the courtyard where they were all gatherd together. Then the Baathist soldiers, who were armed with weapons such as cables, batons, iron rods, etc., began to beat this group of prisoners. With the protest of the prisoners, this brutality ended and the prisoners who had been beaten were sent back to their barracks. At the same time, Major Mofid left the camp, but returned an hour later with a large number of soldiers. First, they took statistics in each barrack, then  started beating the prisoners with everything they had (cable, baton, etc.). In each barrack, the prisoners were placed in groups of five in the middle , and then five or six soldiers beat them with cables and batons. That night, the Iraqis beat all the prisoners of the 2nd and 3rd barracks from the beginning of the night until 4 in the morning. After that night, the strictures continued for a long time. For example, during the counting ceremony, the prisoners had to be prostrated, and remain in the same position until the counting process of all the barracks was over and the whistle was blown. This spell lasted about three quarters to one hour.

3. A number of prisoners whose spinal cord had been  severed due to injuries  sustaind on the battlefield were present in this camp. These captives returned to Iran on February 7^th,1983. On this date, a total of 190 Iranian prisoners were released, in addition to the people with spinal cord amputations and other wounded captives, also 4 female captives who were captured at the beginning of the war and were in this camp were released. After spending a few months in Baghdad prison, these four people were transferred to the Mosul camp and then to camp Nr. 8 in early August 1982, and they stayed there until their release.

see also

• Camp
• Management and leadership
• Important events of Anbar camp
• Responsibilities in Anbar Pharmacy
• Monthly provision of prisoners

Bibliography

Saeed Najjar