Fateme Nahidi

Female liberated Iranian captive

Fateme Nahidi was born on  12th of April 1953. In 1972, she entered Shahid Beheshti University of Tehran to major in midwifery. Shortly after the revolution which coincided with her graduation from the university, she tried to discharge her social duty by travelling to backward and impoverished provinces and areas of Iran where her services as a midwife were most needed: "Since I graduated, I had gone to impoverished areas. I felt that I could make my presence felt more hugely there than anywhere else. The imam had announced that the construction of the country is a crusade, so anybody equipped with knowledge and expertise should become a crusader."

The circumstances of her captivity

In one of her trips to the city of Bam, she heard the news  of the war outbreak. She was twenty-four years old at that time. Upon hearing the news of the war, she returned to Tehran and from there, she went to the front-line with an expedition group: "As soon as we arrived in Dezful , we went straight to the Vahdati base. Our group consisted of me, Dr. Sadeghi, Mr. Zandi and Mr Jarguyee with two other people who were rescuers. I had studied midwifery, so together we had formed a team and made for the front-line.

Fateme Nahidi along with several others were captured by the Iraqi forces on the 20th of October: "It was half past eight on the morning of October 20th... Two soldiers, who were very anxious, came and informed  us that there were many martyrs and wounded in the front line, and now  we need an ambulance and fighters. Mr Jarguyee and I got on the ambulance with those two soldiers and moved... We went so far that the tanks loomed. But still they were not close enough for the two soldiers to identify them as enemy or Iranian tanks. Heavy shooting started at us. I don't know if it was a tank cannon or otherwise. Whatever it was, hurled our car into the air. Everybody said  that we were entrapped."

After two or three interrogations, Fateme Nahidi was taken to a garrison in Tanumeh.Just one week after her captivity  two other captive girls were brought in : "I had been  there for a week when I saw two people being brought in. They were wearing trousers and wimples. They were holding each other's hands. Actually they were two fellow female captives Masoumeh Abad and Shamsi (Maryam) Bahrami. They looked younger than me probably about 17 to 20 years old."

Some time later, Mrs. Halime Azmude joined them. Fateme Nahidi and three other captive girls were kept by the Iraqi intelligence for a while and then in al-Rashid prison in Baghdad. In order to inform others of their situation, they wrote their names on the wall: "A piece of the ceramic wall of cell 19 had peeled off  and fallen on the floor. I said, guys, we can write our names on the wall using this. With its tip, everyone wrote their names on the wall. They were hoping that the prospective occupant of their cell would somehow break the news of the captivity of four Iranian women to the Red Cross. And sure enough, it happened as they had hoped for: "But because the news had been reported only by one person, it was not taken seriously enough by the Red Cross."

By knocking on the wall, they communicated with the prisoners locked in the adjacent cell   and learned about the rights of the prisoners: "We had comprehended many things through these communications, specifically that where we were at the time was for the political prisoners of Iraq and that they should have taken us to the POWs camp It was said that the prisoners in the camp wrote letters to their families and got  paid monthly, and that they could  go shopping. But we  had  problems even with our sanitation."

Fateme Nahidi and three other captive girls demanded to be transferred to the camp and to be registered by the Red Cross. For this purpose, they went on a hunger strike. On the 19th day of the hunger strike, they were transferred to the hospital. All four of them refused to be put on a drip. Finally, they were hospitalized and representatives of the Red Cross were brought to see them: "When they noticed that they could not oppose us, they tied our hands and feet and put us on a drip... It was before noon that the Red Cross representatives came. "Before they came, they had cleaned the room and put a bouquet of flowers on the table." After meeting with the Red Cross and writing letters to their families, they were taken to the Musel camp (→ camp). After that, they were kept in Al-Amara camp for some time and finally in February 1983, they were sent to Iran with a number of prisoners.

Fateme Nahidi was held captive by Iraqi Baathist forces for three years and four months and then returned to her homeland: "It was on the night of January 29^th, 1983 when we arrived in Iran. We were at the airport for two hours, and at eleven o'clock, they took us to Sorkheh Hesar Hospital by ambulance. There was no electricity. I don't know why the electricity had gone out. It was snowing heavily. There was silence and darkness as we moved through the city. I was reflecting on how Iranians had been oppressed and how Iraqis were celebrating on the streets."

Book publication

Fateme Nahidi's captivity memories were published once in 2012 by Revayat-e-Fath Institute, as compiled by Maryam Baradaran. It was also published in the periodical collection of “ Shut doors” 2^nd book.. In  some part of it, we read: "When the door of the cell was closed, the captives stood for a few moments, shocked and immobile. When they left Basre, they thought the Iraqis  were going to return them to Iran. Why had they brought them here? They even took the names of many prisoners to take with them to Iran. Now they had ended up in here, a four-meter cell. The floor and walls were covered with dark brown tiles. In a hole near the ceiling, there was a dim light bulb. They had separated the corner of the cell with two short walls of seventy and eighty centimeters. Behind it there was a toilet  of European fashion with a faucet providing both cold and hot water. The iron door had a small hatch that could only be opened from the outside. There was a rubber band around the door. No sound was coming in or going out. It was a dirty tight place. But it was tolerable for a few days. They loitered here and there and told each other what they saw. Fateme bent down and Halima went on her back. She found a pencil in the hole where the lamp was and picked it. There were things written on the wall between the tiles. Some had written that they were going to be executed tomorrow and had inscribed their wills on the wall. Halima read the phrases and sentences to them. The writings were in Arabic. In some places there were just names and dates."

“ Staring hard in their eyes” is another book written by Maryam Shanaky about the memories of Nahidi's captivity. This book was published in 1996 by the publishing house of the artistic field and went to the book market.

See also

• Camp
• Captivity and captives
• Masoume Abad
• Shamsi Bahrami

Bibliography

Fatemeh Dehghan Nayyery