Testimonies of Benevolence through Lâm Duc Hiên’s Photos

Lâm Duc Hiên's photographic memoir "Kurdistan, mon ami" stands as a powerful chronicle of one of modern history's humanitarian crises – the Kurdish exodus of 1991. As a 19-year-old witness to these events, I find myself deeply moved by Hiên's intimate documentation of a tragedy that shaped my own life and the lives of countless Kurdish families and people.
What makes Hiên's work so remarkable is his unique perspective and personal life-story. As a Vietnamese-French photographer who had himself experienced displacement as a child refugee from Laos, he brought both professional skill and profound empathy to his documentation of the story of Iraqi Kurdistan Region establishment from 1991 to the present time. Through his lens, we can see not just the raw suffering of the displaced people fleeing war and Iraqi Baathist forces, but also moments of dignity, resilience, and humanity amid unimaginable hardship.
The book’s narrative, spanning thirty years of Hiên’s engagement with Kurdistan and its people—Peshmerga, politicians, and intellectuals—offers a profoundly historical and personal journey. It begins in 1991, when Hiên arrived as a humanitarian worker with the NGO ÉquiLibre, distributing food, medicine, and building materials to a population devastated by war and displacement. Through his lens, he captured haunting images: desperate mothers fighting for bread, families trudging through mud and snow toward uncertain futures, and communities slowly piecing their lives back together in the ruins of conflict.
Among those he met in 1991 were humble, weary, and soft-spoken armed men—ordinary individuals with no political ambitions, only a fierce commitment to protect their people. When Hiên returned decades later, he was astonished to find that two of those same men had become the President and the Vice President of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region. This transformation—from refugee camps and mountain trenches to the halls of political power—left a lasting impression on him. It symbolized not only the resilience of individuals but also the evolution of an entire nation striving for dignity, democracy, and recognition.
What most powerfully affected me are the echoes of my own family's experience. As Hiên documents the exodus through Halabja toward Iran, I recall my mother's courage and care as she guided her six sons, daughter, brother, and eight nephews across those same treacherous borders from Takya near Kirkuk to Tazeabad refugee camp in Kermanshah in Iran. The fear, tears, and determination captured in Hiên’s photographs mirror the expression on my late mother’s face—emotions that defined our own seven-day-and-night journey on foot, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of others during the first week of April 1991.
Beyond its personal narrative, the book powerfully chronicles the establishment of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region – a pivotal historical development that stands in stark contrast to earlier Kurdish independence efforts. Hiên's documentation reveals how the convergence of international humanitarian support and the coalition forces led by the UK, USA, and France created a protective umbrella that allowed Kurdish aspirations to take concrete political form. The implementation of the no-fly zone north of the 36th parallel following Operation Provide Comfort marked a crucial turning point, as captured in Hiên's photographs of allied military personnel establishing security alongside humanitarian workers.
The late Danièle Mitterrand's advocacy, documented in the book, highlights the substantial role of international diplomatic support in the Region's emerging autonomy. This international backing – both humanitarian and military – represents the critical difference between the successful establishment of the Iraqi Kurdistan Region in 1991 and the short-lived Republic of Kurdistan of 1947 in Mahabad-Iran. Where the latter collapsed without international support, the former persisted and evolved into the semi-autonomous region we know today, largely due to the protective intervention captured in Hiên's lens.
"Kurdistan, mon ami" is much more than a photographic record – it is a testament to benevolence, human resilience and the power of bearing witness. For those of us who lived through these events, Hiên's work validates our experiences and ensures they will not be forgotten by history. For others, it provides a deeply human window into a complex regional conflict often reduced to geopolitical abstractions.
As I work now to translate this valuable document for the Arabic Speaking World and reviewing the text with my colleague Miss Zahra Kosrat, I find myself reconnecting with memories both painful and profound, shedding tears sometimes. Hiên's compassionate gaze reminds us that behind every refugee crisis are individual human stories deserving of attention and care. In preserving these moments of Kurdish history with such sensitivity, Lâm Duc Hiên has created not just a book, but a bridge between cultures and generations.