Musel camp 2
One of the detention camps of Iranian prisoners in Iraq.
musel camp 2 was opened in the middle of October 1980 inside a barracks near the city of musel . musel is the capital of Neynava province, which is located in the westernmost point of Iraq and has the greatest distance from the borders of Iran, and this long distance made the prisoners less likely to think of escaping [1] [2]. Most of the people of Nineveh and Musel provinces are Sunnis(cf Shiee). And they were loyal to Saddam's Baathist regime. The musel camp 2 was located near three other camps, and over time, these three forts were integrated to keep prisoners during the war.
Geographical and architectural characteristics
On the first floor of this camp, there were fourteen large halls, which were 24 meters long and 12 meters wide. There were twelve windows on the side of the courtyard, each of which was one meter and 40 cm long and 70 cm wide, blocked by iron bars in front of them. Each sanatorium had two large iron doors, one of which was always closed; Each sanatorium had six columns in the middle and eight fans. This building was made of concrete and looked like a castle. The width of the walls was more than 60 cm and the height of the building was about ten meters. The second floor of the old building was being used by the Iraqis themselves, and the prisoners were taken there only for torture.
History and dwellers of musel camp 2
The first group of prisoners who entered the musel camp 2 were about 47 people, some of whom had been captured by mercenary agents and turned over to the Baathist regime about ten months before the start of the war in Kurdistan. Among them, we can mention Ahmad Ruzbahany and Ata Tajik, who were captured by counter-revolutionaries in Oramanat region [1] [2]. The first camp that the Red Cross visited was the musel 2 , and the numbers 1 to 1000 registered by the Red Cross Organization belonged to the prisoners of this camp. Heshmat Guderzi, who was an army officer, was registered number one of the Red Cross. The above-mentioned group of 47 people was placed in sanatorium 2 and Corporal Malekzadeh became the first functionary of the sanatorium[1][2].
The second group that entered the camp consisted of 57 people who were captured in Khorramshahr and settled in room 1; Among these people, Mohammad Mohebi was a naval officer who became the functionary of the camp [3]. The third group that entered the musel camp 2 was made up of some fellows from Tehran and a number of army soldiers and officers. The members of the latter group were conducting military operations around Abadan to break the siege of Abadan, when they were captured. The fourth group consisted of 200 prisoners who were transferred from the Ramadi camp to musel 1, and the fifth group included some comrades of martyr Hossein Alam –ol- Hoda an activist before and after the Islamic Revolution and the commander of the Howeiza Corps in the imposed war. He was 22 years old and died a martyr in Nasr operation on January 16th 1980 in Howeizah and some of his companions were captured at the same date and transferred to musel camp 2.
After the above-mentioned groups, a number of families (about forty people), consisting of old men and women who were too weak to escape, were gathered from around Khorramshahr and brought to this camp, and they were settled in a room of approximately 12 x 12 meters. The last group entered this camp on March 2nd 1980. They were some armed forces from Ghasr-e- Shirin and Sarpul Zahab.
With the arrival of these 180 people, the population of the camp exceeded one thousand ; In each of the nine large sanatoriums in musel 2 (the number of rooms was 14; in the first and second years, only 9 sanatoriums were used and the doors of the other five sanatoriums were closed. After the Fath-ol-Mobin operation, 2 sanatoriums and after the Beyt-ol-Moghaddas operation , 3 more sanatoriums were added, amounting to14), 125 people were accommodated. The families about 50 people were accommodated in a separate room. In addition, six officers of the Islamic Republic army resided in a small room.
Camp facilities
Next to the sanatoriums, there was a room in the corner of the camp that was used as a kitchen; At first, the kitchen was in the hands of Iraqis, and the cooking conditions were very poor. After some time, Reza Roshan, Hossein Saadat and Mohammad Mohebi suggested that the cooking of the food should be left to the prisoners, which was agreed upon and the cooking state was improved. In the morning they cooked some lentil and rice and served it as broth to the captives. Each captive was entitled only to 7 spoonfuls and at noon it was usually rice with some meat or potatoes or eggplant or vegetables. The amount of food served as lunch was also limited and did not exceed ten spoonfuls and in the beginning they spared the gravy to serve it as dinner, but after a few months, the plan changed and they only servd lunch and skipped dinner. They also gave two sandwiches each day to captives (most of the time the bread was doughy and stale). The prisoners ate one loaf of bread in the morning and saved the other for dinner. In addition, every morning one glass of tea was served.
On the other side of the camp, there was a room similar to a kitchen, used in effect as an infirmary. Next to the infirmary, there was a small room used as a tailor's workshop where three tailors worked. Next to the kitchen, there was a small hall with two small rooms used as a solitary cell. At the end of the camp, beyond the kitchen, there were two canopies, each with an area of 200 meters protecting the captives against the glare of the sun while walking.
Important events
1. In the decade of Fajr 1980, several captives were separated and taken outside the camp, they never returned to the camp and no one seemed to know what had become of them. Apparently, all of them were martyred. Among them, only Dr. Habibullah Jariri, the former governor of Sistan and Baluchistan, and Saeed Nowzari had been identified.
2. In the first days of April 1981, the rumor of a strike spread in the camp and immediately afterward the prisoners went on a hunger strike; Of course, the Iraqis attacked the prisoners very brutally and within an hour, they beat and tortured all dwellers of sanatoriums, and since it was not clear what had triggered the hunger strike, it soon subsided.
3. On the 16th of May 1981, the Iraqis set Ali Bayat's feet on fire in the camp area. Ali had held a Quran class. We had tried to keep the class dark from the Iraqis, but we did not succeed. That day, contrary to our expectation, they blew the whistle ahead of time and then barged into our sanatorium and dragged Ali and four other people who had lights out. They said that captives had made a lamp, which was against the regulations. But Ali was not at all good at making lamps; The only near-certain possibility was that news about the Quran class had leaked out. They had taken those four people to conceal their true intention. They made Ali sit at the center of an area with his hands and feet bound together, then they hanged him from a log, afterward they placed some cardboards and cartons smeared with petrol under his feet. When they set the cartons and cardboard on fire, his vociferation uttering the words Allahu Akbar or Mahdi! resonated in the camp. Ali Bayat's legs were on fire. The Iraqis kept pouring petrol on his feet from a bowl. After this barbaric show, they took Ali out of the camp because they believed that the Red Cross would visit all camps. According to Ali Bayat, he was first imprisoned in a cell that was formerly a warehouse. During this time, his legs were severely festering. Then they took him from the warehouse to a field toilet, which was about 150 meters away from the camp, and imprisoned him there. During this time, Ali was imprisoned without medicine and treatment, with only a meagre meal. Until one day, representatives of the Red Cross came to the camp earlier than scheduled. That day, the captives complained about the behavior of the Iraqis and told them about the torture of Ali Bayat. The first officers did not believe this case and said with surprise that such a thing was impossible! After the Red Cross representatives left, Ali Bayat ,drained and emaciated with sore swollen feet was brought back to the camp[4].Right after this incident the pilot Ayyub Mohammadzade was brought to the camp and before long was elected as the camp functionary.; Following his conversation with the Red Cross, the Iraqi commander, Colonel Faisal, was removed from his position and Colonel Taleb was appointed instead.
4. One day after the explosion of the Islamic Republic Party office and the martyrdom of Shahid Beheshti and his companions, a group of prisoners with the encouragement and support of the Iraqis celebrated, danced and distributed soft drinks among captives.
5. A few days before the holy month of Ramadan 1981, the Iraqis announced that anyone who wanted to fast should register so that arrangements for Eftar and Sahary could be made. Almost half of the people in the camp registered, and after that, they gathered the fasting people in one side of the camp, and the camp was automatically divided into two parts, religious and irreligious fellers, and this caused a rift between the captives. The situation intensified when the irreligious captives ( as contrasted from the fans of Hezbollah) started blaspheming against the Imam , the prophet and whatever was assumed sacred.( fasting and how to fast)
6. In the late fall of 1981, the Iraqi commander, Colonel Mohammad , gathered the prisoners and announced: According to the Geneva law, you must do block work for us and get paid in return. They started from room 9 until it was the turn of room 4. Within this spell, the extremist captives came to the conclusion that it is not permissible for the Iraqis to build blocks and that these blocks may be used for building trenches. So the first morning when the Iraqi soldiers came and said it's your turn to drudge, they heard a negative answer. They visited all four rooms, but the answer was negative. Then they closed the doors and only opened the doors for ten minutes a day so that the captives could go the bathroom. This strike lasted four months.
7. In the spring of 1982, the doors opened and some new prisoners entered the camp. Among them, there was a pious person ; a man of strong moral fiber named Seyyed Ali Akbar Abu Torabi Fard. On that day, the camp was in dire straits. A four-month strike, differences among prisoners, and even conflicts among Hezbollah members; Seyyed strove hard and did his best and so less than a month, he could solve the problem of the strike settled all the differences among the captives and restored unity and brotherhood.
8. There were two warehouses in the two corners of the camp, barred with barbed wire; Of course, the prisoners passed through the barbed wire and entered the warehouse. On May 15th 1982, two people entered the warehouse and set it on fire for unknown reasons and left. When the smoke spread everywhere, the Iraqis noticed and asked us for help to extinguish the fire in the warehouse; In this way, a large crowd entered the warehouse and everyone took out everything they could. Of course, the fire was extinguished, but some forbidden items fell into the hands of the captives.
9. On August 3rd 1982 , the banishment of Hojjat -ol-Islam Abu Torabi Fard, the transfer of four captive girls from one camp to another, the severe punishment of a captive with an amputated leg who was all the same subjected to a bastinado, and the beating of two captives during the counting process and the reaction of one of the captives led to a clash between the Iraqi soldiers and the Iranian captives, who broke the doors, went out, and the Iraqis fired a volley of shots at them. In this conflict, two people,Mohammed Suri and Amir Bamirizadeh, were martyred and approximately 15 people were injured, and then the doors were closed to the prisoners for 45 days.
10. On the morning of August 6th 1984, before they opened the doors, the Iraqis entered the camp and took about 800 people, 500 captives from the Beit-ol-Moghaddas operation and 300 active members of Hezbollah were transferred to another camp[5].
11. On the eve of Noruz 1982, two people escaped in the middle of the night from above the door of sanatorium 2 and then from the bathroom window of room 7 of the camp. The Iraqis discovered it about noon and put everyone under pressure. Although those two people managed to come to Iran, they determined a very difficult and ominous fate for the rest of the captives. (← escape)
12. After the escape of these two people, the Iraqis increased their security and control measures; for instance they barred the windows that opened outside the camp. The Iraqis happened to find two grenades which the captives had fetched from the burning warehouse the other day at one of the windows and that intensified the sensitivity of Iraqis. In this way, the Iraqis started running down those who had set the warehouse on fire. They tortured about 40 people from Camp 1 and Mosul Camp 3, and they found other things in the investigative operations they did with mine detectors, and they were looking for the master-mind of those sabotages. Khalil Fathi took the blame on himself to save the lives of others and was martyred under torture.
13. The Baathists started building a platform in the camp to carry out their propagandizing program. Our boys spent three months to stop this. Eventually, the Iraqis surrendered and ordered the prisoners to assemble the platforms themselves. During the work, the knuckle of one of the captives named Hossein Shiri was cut [6].
14. In 1985, the Baathists took the captives to the Holy Shrines. Prisoners seized upon every opportunity to convey Imam Khomeini's message. One of the captives named Jamal Moharrer had secretly painted a picture of Imam Khomeini (RIP) on the dash-dashe ( a kind of Arabic garment) and brought it with him and hung it from the window in the dining hall of Hazrat Abbas (PBUHS) shrine. This action made the Baathists very angry and changed their mind as to take the remaining group of this camp on pilgrimage to Karbala[6]. (→ Important events of musel camp 2)
The end of the camp
Finally, on March 14th and 15th 1983, at night, the Iraqis got 7 captives out of 14 sanatoriums and moved them to Ramadi. After the doors were opened and breakfast was served, the transfer of the second half of the camp began, and by noon the entire camp was empty, thus came the lifespan of the old musel camp 1 to end.
At the same time as the last people were taken out of the camp, the prisoners of Kheybar operation were brought into this camp. After some time, the number of this camp was changed to musel 2, and the prisoners of the Kheybar operation remained in this camp until 1990. They were the first group captured inside the territory of Iraq, because of this, they were more persecuted by the Iraqis, that is to say they were all beaten every day for a year, and the Iraqis did not allow the Red Cross to enter this camp for a year. In the winter of 1984, a three-person delegation from the United Nations came to Iraq to visit the prisoners, and it was after the visit of this delegation that the persecution of the kheybar prisoners was slightly reduced. Life in the camp continued and something new happened every day. Sometimes a group was taken from the camp and another group joined the prisoners until the prisoners left the camp on August 27th, 28th 1990, and the musel camp 1 was shut down forever.
See also
Bibliography
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Rozbahani, Ahmed (2016). Interview, Tehran, dated March 8, 2016
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Baba Khan, Power (2016). Interview. Tehran, dated March 8, 2016.
- ↑ Mohabi, Mohammad (2016). Interview. Tehran, dated March 8, 2016.
- ↑ Geramy, Asadullah (2017). Missing smile Tehran: Payam Azadegan
- ↑ Kompany, Qassem; Jovani, Gholamhossein and Gudarzi, Hossein (2016). interview . Tehran, dated March 8, 2016.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Tajfar, Abdullah (2018). interview . Tehran dated Mehr 2018.
Ali Alidust Ghazvini