‘Trapped and powerless’ Kurdish women set themselves on fire in a final act of desperation
A burns unit in northern Iraq treats victims of selfimmolation. The Telegraph speaks to rare survivors
SRWA bears her resignation through horribly blistered lips.
Encased almost head to toe in bandages, the 29-year-old mother of two wears a veil of gauze, leaving only the lower part of her face visible.
The pain from the burns which cover her entire body must be excruciating, but the sadness in her expression hints at something more.
The nurses say Srwa is the latest victim of a copycat outbreak of suicide by self-immolation which has swept the Kurdish-governed region of Iraq in recent years, destroying thousands of womens lives.
The terrifying trend, say experts, is being driven by a sense of powerlessness and domestic abuse.
Recent social developments and changes in the region have “increased the women’s expectations and in turn made men more defensive”, found one academic study of the phenomenon.
Chief nurse Nigar Marf, 52, who has worked for more than 20 years at the Burn and Reconstructive Surgery Hospital in the city of Sulaymaniyah, in Northern Iraq, says: “Often women come in like this, with flame burns from head to toe, scraps of their clothes stuck to their bodies, and their families say it’s from a cooking accident, because of the shame.”
The giveaway, according to Ms Marf, was the smell of kerosene when Srwa arrived at the hospital in an ambulance. Typically, women douse their clothes in the fuel which is used for heating and cooking, and then set themselves alight.
Srwa’s fingertips are also blackened, another sign that this was not the result of a sudden blast from a gas stove – as the family claims.
“This case certainly is definitely a suicide,” says Ms Marf. “Because she soaked herself in kerosene, the burns are much deeper. It could not be from an explosion; if it was, some parts of the body would not be burned.”
Srwa insists we only photograph her with a makeshift veil covering the upper part of her face. She winces as she perches on the edge of a hospital bed while the nurse adjusts a drip.
For staff at the hospital, Srwa’s tragedy has become all too familiar.
During the week The Telegraph was there, three women came in with horrific burns, which the nurses say is about average. Sometimes it is a daily occurrence, and the majority do not survive more than a few hours.
It is estimated that self-immolation has claimed the lives of more than 11,000 women since the Kurdistan region gained autonomy in 1991, although reliable data are scarce as many victims never reach hospital.
The crisis is particularly acute in Sulaymaniyah province, which possesses the only specialised burns unit of its kind in the whole of Iraq.
In many cases, these women are trapped in abusive households with nowhere to turn for help. This is a conservative society in which domestic violence remains hidden behind closed doors.
Caught in arranged marriages from a young age, often in remote villages, the women have little education and are vulnerable to copycat acts of martyrdom. According to UN figures, women in Iraq face escalating levels of domestic abuse, with cases of genderbased violence increasing by 125 per cent to more than 22,000 cases between 2020 and 2021.
Most suicides are impulsive rather than planned acts, say experts, and the availability of kerosene here means self-immolation has become common.
Experts say some women see it as their only means to exert power in unequal relationships.
Michael Eddleston, a professor of clinical toxicology at the University of Edinburgh and a leading authority on suicide, explains: “My view is that these people have come into a situation in which they cannot find any other way out. It’s about telling people how upset you are, how underpowered you are, and how you can’t change your situation.”
He added: “What you have with burning is very performative in a way; it sends a message. They are not very well thought-through these acts; they are moments of anger and overwhelming emotion coming through. The consequence could be death, and clearly this is very high with self-burning.”
In a study published by the
International Psychiatry Journal in
2012, more than two thirds of 54 women surveyed while being treated in Sulaymaniyah said family and marital problems motivated the action.
Sulaymaniyah hospital data show that almost a third of the 4,935 women admitted with new burns since 2007 died from their injuries. The majority, almost 80 per cent, were aged between 15 and 45. There was only one month when no self-immolation cases were recorded in the past 17 years for which data are available – during the Covid lockdown.
In 2018, a study reported: “Most Kurdish women’s rights activists believe that, in these regions, selfimmolation and suicide are a kind of protest against the male-dominated society and the discriminations and limitations imposed by the father, brothers, and the husband’s family.
“Women enjoy far less freedom of choice and action than men. It seems that recent social developments and changes have increased the women’s expectations and in turn made men more defensive, as they wish to preserve their traditional maledominated society.”
Gona, 35, is a rare survivor willing to talk about setting herself on fire, which she did in June last year.
“My husband had been punishing me, using very bad words,” recalls Gona, the mother of two sons, aged 16 and 12. “When I came back from work in the evening, he didn’t answer. That was when I thought about burning myself – to make my husband see what he was doing to me ... I didn’t think about how much it would hurt. He had punished me so much that I wasn’t thinking rationally.
“I went out onto the flat roof and poured gasoline on my legs, all over my clothes, covering my whole body. Then I set fire to my clothes, with a cigarette lighter. The flames shot right up my body.”
Released from hospital months later, Gona, a children’s nursery worker, went back to her husband, vainly hoping he might be transformed. In fact, he was worse, deliberately slapping her burns.
Gona’s back, arms and legs remain scarred. One leg is especially damaged.
Another survivor, Banaz Farwq, 24, from Kirkuk, recounts how she was trapped in an arranged marriage to a man who bullied her.
For Banaz, the trigger for soaking herself in kerosene was a petty row in which her husband and mother-in-law criticised her lack of cooking skills.
Her husband threw his lighter at her in an act of incitement, she claims, and then watched impassively as she burned.
Another relative tried to extinguish the flames, but it was too late to prevent the worst damage.
The physical harm she suffered that day was not only external; she also lost a baby, as she was five months pregnant at the time.
“The hardest thing is that I feel like I’m not a normal person now,” says Banaz. “When I look at myself in the mirror, I can try to hide the scars with make-up, but it’s not the same, I’m not comfortable. My legs and hands still hurt. I have physio treatment and medication, but I will never look normal again.
“Of course, I regret it now. It has brought shame to my family. Relatives don’t want to acknowledge us anymore. But, at the time, I didn’t feel like I had another choice.”
Dr Nashmeel Rasool, a psychiatrist who conducted the study in Sulaymaniyah, cites religious and tribal pressures as other key factors.
She says: “There are some who have a better life after the burning, but that usually depends on their education level and their family. For some, they consider that whatever the disfigurement they suffer from, they regard it as better than the internal pain they suffered before.”
Dr Rasool and Ms Marf have raised awareness of the problem but believe increased political will is needed to subdue the prevalence of selfimmolation, more concentrated here than anywhere else in the world.
Without the financial help of local charity Kurdistan Save The Children (which is not part of the international NGO Save The Children) even fewer of those admitted would survive.
The organisation, founded by Hero Ibrahim Ahmed, the wife of former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, covers hospital expenses and medication costs for poor families.
While most of the self-immolation cases in Sulaymaniyah are middle-aged women, some children have followed the same drastic course.
Last month, a 13-year-old girl died three weeks after being admitted with 75 per cent burns in a suspected suicide prompted by her father walking out.
One of the most harrowing cases The
Telegraph witnesses happens soon after we arrive. Shilan Jalal is carried into the hospital late on a Tuesday, her whole body covered in inoperable burns. As the 41-year-old is draped in fresh, iodine-soaked bandages, the damage appears extreme.
Third-degree burns cover 85 per cent of her body. The flames peeled away her skin so that her nerve endings have been destroyed. Her veins are too damaged to insert a cannula.
This time, the apparent cover story, which is relayed by Shilan’s sisters, is that a kitchen bread oven exploded.
Ms Marf is again insistent it must be self-immolation. Shilan’s wounds suggest she offered no resistance as she was engulfed by the flames.
Dr Barzan Ali Faraje, consultant forensic pathologist at Sulaymaniyah’s Medico-legal Institute, explains that even when there are suspicions about the cause of death, autopsies are rarely carried out to confirm probable self-immolation.
“We know that because of the social stigma, they are usually hiding their reality,” he explains. “When a woman douses herself in kerosene, there is a very high percentage of burns and no sign of self-defence, but this still does enable us to give a decision.
“All cases should have an autopsy, but we have to negotiate with the family, so many of these deaths are not recorded.”
For several days, we watch Shilan’s decline. There is little the medics can do. The groans emanating from her smoke-scarred throat through a sleepless delirium are terrifying, only slowing as she nears her final hour.
“Even though I have been doing this for so long,” says Ms Marf, “I always put myself in the patient’s shoes. I think that both of us are women, and then I identify with them better. The emotions are still just as hard, the tragedy no less.
“There are some who return to their villages and self-harm again, which is very hard to accept. I tremble when I think about it.
“Of course, sometimes when women come out and build a new life, I am happy. Sometimes they come back to hug me and say thanks.”
During our final afternoon in Sulaymaniyah, Srwa’s mother pushes her around the hospital grounds in her wheelchair, the first positive journey in what will be a lengthy recovery.
Shilan’s husband, meanwhile, glares through the window of her treatment room for a few seconds, and then disappears, saying nothing to her gathered siblings. A few hours later, she is dead.
125pc The increase in gender-based violence in Iraq between 2020 and 2021, rising to more than 22,000 cases ‘Of course, I regret it now ... But, at the time, I didn’t feel like I had another choice’