Responding to the Humanitarian
Emergency in Iraq in the Aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War

In the wake of Iraq’s retreat from Kuwait in February 1991, mass uprisings against the regime of Saddam Hussein erupted. The brutality with which these insurrections were suppressed caused mass flight. Nearly two million Iraqis fled to the neighboring countries of Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. An additional 600,000 were displaced internally within Iraq. Many of these were Iraqi Kurds who were denied entry into Turkey and remained massed across the border. The international community made unprecedented arrangements to deal with the emergency. US-led Coalition forces attempted to create safe areas for Kurds in the northern part of the country. The United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 688 declaring that the repression of Iraqi civilians was a threat to international peace and security and demanding humanitarian access. Iraq refused to accept the Resolution, but did make arrangements to allow a number UN installations. Those displaced in the south did not benefit from such arrangements, although unarmed UN observers were deployed. Human Rights First sent several missions to study the conditions of displaced Iraqis in nothern Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait and Iran. Based on these findings Human Rights First identified concrete measures for the improvement of the situation of displaced Iraqis, as well as examining the positive and negative elements of the unprecedented strategies used in responding to the emergency. The findings of this research were presented in Asylum Under Attack: A report on the Protection of Iraqi Refugee and Displaced Persons One Year After the Humanitarian Emergency in Iraq.

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