I Walked Into Iraq
Fifteen years ago, at the start of the war on Iraq, I left Turkey and walked into Iraq on assignment for Time. This is what happened.
*This article contains graphic photos*
Tomorrow, April 9, 2018, marks the 15th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.
At the outset of the invasion of Iraq, a small group of photographers were camped out on the Turkish border, in the small towns of Cizre and Silopi. I was one of them, and I thought entering Iraq would be a cakewalk: just follow the U.S. troops as they made their push into the country from Turkey.
I thought wrong.
At the last minute, Turkey decided not to allow the United States use its land as a staging area, so there would be no U.S. troops to follow. Northern Iraq was only 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) away, but the situation was fluid and impossible to read. The other photographers and I had been waiting in Turkey for a few weeks, trying to position to cover the war. Now we scrambled to try to come up with a plan.
Every approach our group of journalists tried — from being smuggled in a potato truck, to hiring a Turkish driver with political connections — were unsuccessful, and ate up precious time in the face of fast-moving events. Then, fearful of a rapid influx of Kurdish refugees, the Turks closed the border. I could see Iraq in front of me, but getting there was becoming impossible. The only way across the border would be illegally, on foot.
The direct way across the Tigris River was too heavily fortified by Turkish soldiers to be practical. We’d have to take an alternate route, through Syria, which meant we’d have to cross the Tigris twice, along with a couple more national borders. The prospect was daunting, but it was either this, or go home, and there was no way I was going to miss covering what was sure to be the biggest and most consequential conflict of my lifetime. How to do it was the question.
While waiting, I got a message from the late Chris Hondros. The young photojournalist had hired a couple of locals to get him across the Tigris directly into Northern Iraq, but they’d left him in the river’s muddy banks at the first sign of trouble. With poor cell phone signal, I had no idea where he was and could not respond. All I could do was hold onto his text until and unless I got questioned by Turkish authorities. In that case, I would promptly delete it. Eventually, the men he’d hired retrieved him. He was unharmed, but so frustrated (not to mention muddy) that he left for Kuwait to cover the war from there.
Travel Light
Getting into Iraq was one thing; making it over with our equipment was a different matter. Another team, with CNN, had tried to cross the Tigris twice. On their first attempt, the swiftly flowing river separated them from their TV gear, forcing them ashore to regroup. On the second try, the team took a longer, indirect route through Syria. Not only did they make it into Iraq, but also miraculously managed to retrieve their gear on the other side.
The Turkish authorities didn’t know what to make of a bunch of journalists gathered at the border, and they watched us closely. It’s a Kurdish area, so they keep a close eye on it no matter what. You could always spot the government spies by their use of English, and the nice cars they drove. We felt safer communicating with our editors on AOL Instant Messenger than we did using phones or email. The spies were watching us like hawks.
Our plan had to be kept secret, but someone had to know in case anything happened. The only people I told of my plans for crossing were Jeffrey Smith, Director of Contact Press Images, and my brother Albert. I made them promise not to tell my mother. She had always been a big supporter of my career, but I saw no reason to make her worry.
The decisive moment had arrived. A colleague and I decided to leave most of ourequipment behind at the hotel. I carried only two lenses, two camera bodies, a satellite phone, and my computer. Everything went into double plastic bags to protect it from the rain. Besides this, we carried nothing, not even extra clothes. Whatever else we needed, we figured we could buy on the other side.
We traveled only at night. The days were spent in safe houses. It was supposed to be a two-day trip, but the rains turned the ground into a sloppy, miserable slog, treacherous, like something out of a movie. We tiptoed past both Syrian and Turkish guard posts, rolling through the mud at night and hiding during daylight hours.
By our second night, we were approaching Iraq. We needed only to slip past a few more Syrian border posts and cross the river to get there. Then a thunderstorm hit. Every time the lightning struck the whole area would light up. This made passing by small villages even more hazardous. I was worried someone would come out to see why the dogs were barking and discover us. Every approaching car would force us to dive into the nearest water-filled ditch. And dive we did, because we had no choice but to hide.
Unsure of the next step, we needed guidance. We couldn’t talk to our guides, as we shared no common language. So we used the satellite phone to make a call back to the guide in Turkey who had helped us arrange this crossing. The guides decided that the lightning had made it too easy for us to be spotted. So we began the long, muddy walk back to our most recent safe house to wait and try again.
This was the worst part of the trip, being so close to our goal and having to make the grueling walk back. I was mentally and physically exhausted after what was supposed to be a two-day transit. But the question of giving up was never raised. It wasn’t even an option.
We took the opportunity to rest for a day. The rain stopped, making the last leg of walking to the river and trying to cross again seem more manageable. From the Syrian side, the river looked narrow, and Iraq seemed so close. Getting there looked like it should be easy. This was not so. The water was ice-cold, and the river was much wider than it appeared to our eager eyes.
We crossed in a smuggler’s boat that looked like something you’d see in a backyard barbecue, like something you’d pick up at Toys”R”Us. But iInstead of kids, there were four adults kneeling and squashed together, using a stick with a length of plywood nailed to it as a paddle.
About halfway across, tracer bullets and other assorted gunfire started bouncing around us. I started to panic. We were suddenly faced with three equally likely and unpleasant outcomes: death by hypothermia, drowning, or bullet.
No Regrets
When the bullets started flying, most of the world went into slow motion. Everything seemed to stop, except for the river’s unstoppable current and the neon tracers that threatened to end our lives.
We couldn’t move fast enough, and the river was offering more resistance than our makeshift shuttle could handle, so we missed our intended landing point. Forced to abandon our boat in waist-deep water, we waded the rest of the way into Iraq. Luckily, none of the bullets found their mark.
We planned to make our way to the Northern Iraqi police station and safety, but we didn’t know how we would be received. Thankfully, they welcomed us. The Kurdish police, in fact, seemed happy to have foreign journalists in their country witnesses to what had happened and what was about to occur.
I showed them my passport, filled out some paperwork, dried my clothes on a heater, and caught a little sleep. Before long, I was on my way to Erbil, the Kurdish regional capital. The transition from being freezing, under fire and at risk of drowning, to being a comfortable passenger in a rumbling vehicle en route to my intended destination, was sudden and jarring. It seemed to encapsulate something about the dichotomy and absurdity of war. I would stay in Iraq for a month, photographing Kurds as they fought to secure the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, and American forces as they tried to secure Mosul.
Would I do all of this again? Probably not. Do I regret it? Not for a second.
As a photojournalist, I wanted to record history. I had to earn the chance to do so, and I can look back knowing that I did. If I hadn’t, I would have had myself to answer to.
Photojournalist Yunghi Kim has covered stories for 34 years in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Somalia. She is a special contributor to Contact Press Images and founder of the Yunghi Grant. Follow Yunghi on Twitter and Facebook.
All images copyright: © Yunghi Kim / Contact Press Images. Please do not repost. A special thanks Kenneth Jarecke for the image edit.
Also by Yunghi Kim on Vantage:
- 10 World Press Photo Awards, 10 Backstories. Ten female photojournalists share the stories behind their iconic award-winning images.
- One Piece Of Advice. Indispensable pointers from women photojournalists who’ve seen and done it all.
