HALABJA, Kurdistan Region — At times crying and frequently out of breath, Maryam has for years pursued the Kurdish family she was separated from amidst the chaos of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s 1988 chemical bombardment of Halabja, in which 5,000 people were killed and 10,000 seriously injured by the banned weapons.
Just 8-months old at the time of the attack, until Maryam was 18 she believed she was Iranian, having been raised by adoptive parents in the Islamic Republic. She never learned of her roots in Halabja, but Tuesday night she is to meet her real family for the first time in nearly three decades.
One-hundred and six children went missing in the attack, seven of whom have now rejoined their families. The latest confirmed returnee has become known as Ali Zmnako; Ali was his name when he was living in Iran with an Iranian family, and Zmnako was his Kurdish birth name.
"Each of the five families thought I was their child, and they hoped I would come in to their family," Zmnako told an international conference in Ypres, Belgium in April. "I found my real mother after twenty-two years! I didn't know Kurdish, I could not speak with her, and she did not know Persian, so the only way to communicate was through our eyes. And then she unfortunately said that I had lost my father, four of my brothers and my sister during the attack".
Since Maryam, not her real name, arrived in the Kurdistan region in Iraq, a private hospital has been collecting and analyzing DNA samples from Halabja families whose children went missing in the attack.
Sixty-seven families from Halabja are now waiting for the results Tuesday evening. The results will be announced at a formal event at the Halabja Peace Monument, a museum exhibiting documents about the chemical attack.
Maryam has not been informed about her real family yet, but she and her family are supposed to meet at the event for the first time.
“I cannot believe my eyes now,” Maryam said. “I am now shocked, and I am in doubt. When I see my family for the first time, I don’t know who is alive and who is dead. When I meet them I won’t know how to react. I have been waiting for this moment for years, but now I don’t know what to do.”
In May, when Maryam first spoke for this story, she said she did not know where in Kurdistan she was from, but thought it must be Halabja.
"I hope that one day I will meet the comfort of my real family,” she said in May. “Even if there is only one person left—even if that person is a distant relative—I have seen lots of suffering and difficulties, like I thought I had my family in Iran and now I know I don't."
The Halabja Peace Monument together with the Halabja Chemical Victims Society and local authorities this year commemorated the Missing Children's Day on May 25, perhaps for the first time in the city's history. Maryam's return has made this day extra special for the locals.
Maryam had remained unaware of her origins until she was 18 when her Iranian father died. Then her adopted family told her that she was not their natural daughter and that she was Kurdish.
Maryam said she had visited almost every town and city in Iran where Kurdish refugees lived, but that she could not find any record of herself. That is why she thought about visiting the Kurdistan region to track down her birth family.
Due to her age at the time of the attack, Maryam believed a Halabja origin likely, and the DNA team in Halabja and local authorities later confirmed her belief, but would not yet reveal her true family.
In early May, the head of the Halabja Chemical Victims Society and the Halabja District commissioner invited Maryam to work out her case from within Kurdistan.
"I was jumping with happiness when they invited me, though the war against the Islamic State was around," Maryam said.
She is now in Halabja, but due to her limited knowledge of her birthplace she said she feels like a foreigner due to what is taught in Iranian schools.
"I heard a lot about Lebanon, and the Israel wars, but I don't remember having seen or read anything about the Halabja chemical attack in my school books,” she said. "When I Googled Halabja—that is after I was told I might be from Halabja—I said to myself, ‘what a doomsday, how defenseless!’"
Maryam does not speak Kurdish, but many of her Halabjan neighbors speak Persian, a common language in the area. Halabjans had to flee to Iran several times during the Saddam regime. Mass flights to Iranian territory occurred in 1987 in the Kurdish uprising during the Iran-Iraq War, in 1988 after the chemical attack and again in 1991 during the post-Gulf War Kurdish uprising. The city is also only 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) away from the Iranian border.
But Maryam does not care if her mother—if she is still alive—does not speak her language. "For someone who is a mom, someone who felt heartbroken, there is no need for her to understand my language. The way I feel pain, cry and my heart beating will tell her a lot," she said.
Maryam added that she likes her current Iranian name, but would love to know her real name. However, she said she wants to name herself Nishtman, or “homeland” in Kurdish. "When I get married and give birth to a child, I would like him or her to know their mom and their homeland, something I missed all my life," she said.
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