Roya Diba . رويا ديبا: The air-raid siren and shelters time

Iranian soldier watches Abadan burning-Autumn 1880

30 Years ago in autumn 1980 and two years after Iran revolution, Iraq ruled by Saddam bombed Abadan,Ahvaz and some of our other southern cities. He wanted to take parts of Iran and it was how the 8 years Iran-Iraq war started.

Tehran in first years of war became full of southern immigrants and the population of my elementary school went over 70 students in one class. Those days it was the 1^st time I was seeing southern Iranians. To me they looked different and strangely we had to share everything with them. Since then, Iraq started bombing civilians and hospitals and schools of other cities especially Tehran. I lost two of my classmates in class level 6.

saddam's first air attack to a school in Lorestan province

The worldwide sanctions against Iran and supporting Saddam made all the Iranians from any religion, pro or against revolution to take apart in this national defense. Many kids were escaping from schools to go to war and parents could not stop them. It was the 1^st groups of what was called “Basij” later. So not a very long time ago Basij meant an unorganized military made by people to defense the country against foreign invasion and helping the official army. Not a blind organization filled by bigots with dressing code and directly ruling by the leader to suppress the interior protests.

Too many educated and trained officers left Iran after the revolution including my uncle. So when the war started, Saddam and the countries which were feeding his army with modern weapons of time were predicting a very early failure for the younger and unexperienced army of Iran but against Saddam’s prediction, a few months war lasted for 8 years. In the last years he used “chemical bombs” for the first time in the history of war! He even used this weapon against Kurdish region of Iraq (!!!) because they were against Saddam regime.