COPENHAGEN, Denmark – The Islamic State attacks in Iraq have united and mobilized Kurds in Sweden, where a large number declare their readiness to collect money, join the fight against the militants, or help with medical skills. Taffan Ako Taha, a 20-year old woman who a year ago left law school in Sweden to move to her hometown of Sulaimani in Kurdistan, has been helping by coordinating aid and donations from Sweden, but is prepared to do more: she is ready to become part of the armed struggle. “I've ordered a (Peshmerga) uniform. I have spent many hours at the shooting range,” she told Rudaw. According to her, “a lot of young Kurds” have gone from Sweden to Iraqi Kurdistan to become Peshmergas. “After IS came to Iraq and Kurdistan, it affected me emotionally. So I felt that’s enough, I couldn’t just sit and watch, I needed to do something,” Taha said. Another Swedish Kurd who decided to do something is Nazdar Ghafouri. The 34-year old doctor arrived in the Kurdish capital of Erbil early last week. She is the fifth doctor to go from the Kurdish Medical Association (KLS), a volunteer group of 400 Kurdish doctors and students of medicine and dentistry in Sweden. ”Once again we were facing such cruelty; I felt that I am old enough and through my job as a doctor have the ability to do something and help,” Ghafouri told Rudaw. She said she was inspired by her father, who spent ”his entire life” for the Kurdish cause. Ghafouri said her KLS colleauges on the ground in the refugee camps in Kurdistan were reporting a great humanitarian need, and yet an absence of the large international relief organizations. Her team has met refugee mothers who have given birth in camps or schools, and many traumatized children. “You are in tears when you see the situation. But it’s not our tears they need. It’s water, food, medicine, clothes and protection.” Lokman Atroshi is another caring doctor with KLS, whose aim is to support healthcare in Kurdistan, including the Kurdish areas of Syria (Rojava) where its members have also been helping before the more recent turmoil in Iraq. Atroshi, who has been in Iraqi Kurdistan to help, was shocked by what he saw among refugees fleeing the IS armies, many of them dehydrated and worn out. “It is terrible. Everything is missing. Those who have a tent to sleep in are happy,” he told Rudaw, adding that the children have “terrible memories” of what happened. “They have witnessed killings and violence against family members and they have been many days in the heat.” Jiyan Waladbagi, from Kermanshah in Iranian Kurdistan, said that Swedish Kurds have organized a number of events and demonstrations to raise awareness of the situation of the Kurds, including the Yezidis. They have, among other things, organized political meetings with Swedish politicians and a benefit concert with the popular singer Naser Rezzazi, with the proceeds going to Shingal refugees. Susanne Guven, president of the Kurdish National Association, estimates that around 200 Swedish-Kurds have left Sweden last month to participate in various ways in the fight against IS. “But there is a rough estimate and no safe numbers. There may be more,” she told the Swedish SVD Nyheter.
