A journalist and human rights activist from Kurdistan is aiming to raise the plight of her war-torn region in a photo exhibition in Huddersfield.

Roza Tatani, originally from Sulaymaniyah city in Kurdistan, has been living in Huddersfield for two years and has staged an exhibition of her work called Does Tomorrow Ever Come with the help of the lottery-funded charity Shared Goods which supports asylum seekers and refugees across Kirklees.

Roza’s work as a journalist and a political activist has taken her all over Kurdistan to witness economic crisis, gender inequalities and war crimes against the Kurds.

Despite the fact that Kurdistan has been in a state of continuous war, amounting to genocide, for the past 100 years, Roza hopes to convey a positive image through her pictures.

The 31-year-old said: “I don’t want to show pictures of war. I want to show pictures of people who are full of hope despite the war. I want to show pictures of children playing. I want to show a people who sing, laugh and fill life with hope for a new day.

“Kurdish citizens are trying to stay alive in the hope of ending this long war. I don’t know if that day will come but I learned from those children that hope must not die. Our hope is greater than the goal of war.”

 

 

Kurdistan is a geographical region situated at the heart of the Middle East crossroads and separated between Syria, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. Its people are an Iranian ethnic group from the Middle East, traditionally living in mountainous areas.

After the Gulf War in 1990-1991 and the enforcement by the Americans of a no-fly zone in the Iraqi Kurdistan region the Iraqi Kurds had autonomy.

However, supply routes were blockaded by the Iraqis and the Kurds suffered great hardship as a result. Since 2014 there have been numerous massacres and insurgencies which has resulted in the displacement of around one million Kurdish people.

Roza’s images, taken over two years, document the plight of the indigenous people from women and children to Kurdish fighters. She describes walking through a refugee camp full of children who had lost their homes in their own country because of the war and were living in very poor conditions.

She said: “I saw this child. I asked her mother if I could take a picture of her. The child replied directly ‘you’re late. I drew my own picture yesterday.’  So I took a picture of her with her painting behind her but deep down I felt that yes, we were late, we were too late to stop the war.”

 

 

The Halgurd Mountains in Southern Kurdistan are bombed daily by Turkish warplanes. Hundreds of civilians have lost their lives due to the bombardments since 2008 and many of the civilians killed are Kurdish nomadic children.

“I will never forget one nomadic child,” said Roza. “She was only four months old, a little girl named Solin who died with her family and her sister and brother in a Turkish air strike in the foothills of Mount Kandil.”

According to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, more than 140 civilians were killed and about 200 others injured in the Turkish attacks in South Kurdistan between 2015 and 2023.

Jane Wood, the project manager of Shared Goods, said: “When I first met Roza we welcomed her to Shared Goods, our free shop for refugees and asylum seekers. It was then I discovered what a great photographer she is with an amazing story to tell about the Kurdish people.

“It was a privilege working alongside her to produce the exhibition. It was certainly well received when we launched it during Refugee Week.”

Roza’s exhibition will be on show in the Shared Goods shop in Huddersfield Piazza every Monday to Wednesday between 10.30am and 2pm until July 31.

Written by ANDY HIRST who runs his own Yorkshire freelance journalism agency AH! PR (https://ah-pr.com/) specialising in press releases, blogging, website content and copywriting.