KUWAIT: From enduring the constant rumble of tanks and the threat of chemical attacks to navigating food shortages and the darkened silence of a city in chaos, Fatima Ghloum’s experience was a testament to resilience. Ghloum shared with Kuwait Times snippets of what life was like in Kuwait during the invasion. “If you’re asking me about the hardest thing I went through during the invasion, everything was difficult. Those seven months dragged on as if they were seventy years,” Ghloum said.

Ghloum’s elder brother was a soldier in the Kuwaiti army and the family was terrified for him. “We could hear gunfire and tanks rumbling through the streets, and the sounds were incredibly frightening for us. On top of that, the news was unstable and unsettling.” The family were told that the Iraqis had reached military records and were extracting the names and addresses of soldiers. “As a precaution, our addresses and phone numbers were removed to prevent us from being tracked down,” she said.

Psychological terror was a constant companion, said Ghloum. Families with military members were the most distressed, living under constant threat and frequently moving from one relative’s house to another or staying in abandoned homes left by those who had fled Kuwait during the invasion.

The family split into two groups because they were told that if a soldier did not surrender, his brothers would be taken. “My older brother told my younger siblings to move to our elder brother’s house, who is married and living in another area. My parents and I stayed in our original home, while my siblings moved to my older brother’s home,” she said. The family also feared traitors living among civilians, who were “informing the invaders about the locations of resistance fighters or soldiers.”

Army barracks left by the Iraqi army are seen on a beach on the Arabian Gulf.

Only three loaves

Ghloum also spoke about the struggle to get food. “I would go to the cooperative society early in the morning, around six, and not return until four in the afternoon, sometimes six in the evening, standing in line to get some food,” she said. “Sometimes I would come back empty-handed. We could only get three loaves of bread per family from the baker, regardless of the number of family members. Even if a family had more than ten members, they would only get three loaves.” Often after a long wait, she added, an Iraqi soldier would come and order the baker to give him all the bread to take to his camp, leaving nothing for civilians.

When cooperatives ran out of food, the family couldn’t find anything to eat. “Initially, lentils were the only available food, but soon even that was no longer available,” she said. “Some trucks came from outside the country to sell food, but everything was very expensive, and our money wasn’t enough to buy anything due to the suspension of salaries.”

Ghloum recalls the family’s desperation after they couldn’t use a small amount of Iraqi money a young man had given them one day. “Dealing in Kuwaiti dinars was dangerous. It was considered treason, as they claimed Kuwait was an Iraqi province,” she said. “We couldn’t use the money as the cooperative societies were out of food supplies. We couldn’t search for places with food either because cars with Kuwaiti plates were being stopped, and everyone had to change their Kuwaiti car plates and IDs.”

A flood of darkness

Another difficult memory was when the family received news that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein wanted to bomb Kuwait with chemical weapons. “We taped up the windows to prevent them from shattering and ground charcoal wrapped in cloth for protection.”

The situation worsened when electricity was cut off, and the Iraqi forces struck the oil wells in Kuwait, plunging the country into darkness and quiet, like a pitch-black night with no electricity. “We had to light candles during the day to see. Everything turned black - from our bodies, which were stained, to household items, which became blackened as darkness flooded our homes. We needed candles day and night, so when they ran out, we melted them down, poured the wax into molds with a wick, and used those.”

Ghloum said her experience was “minor” compared to the young people who were killed in front of their homes as their families watched. “That was more devastating than anything else. If it hadn’t been for the traitors that were living among the civilians, informing the Iraqis about those resisting, fewer young lives would have been lost.”

But there was a silver lining despite the horrors and brutality of the invasion, Ghloum said. “One beautiful memory is that despite everything, Kuwaitis in the neighborhood were united, and the loyal and faithful residents helped each other as much as they could. As the orphanage centers were running out of supplies, many families went to the orphanage centers to care for orphaned infants who had no one to look after them,” she said. “The story is long and full of distress, and words alone can’t fully convey the traumatic experience. No matter how much we try to express it, letters and language fall short.”