SULAIMANIYAH: Iranian activist Farhad Sheikhi fights back tears as he recalls the crack of gunfire and his fellow protesters falling under a hail of bullets. Now, having fled to Iraq, he watches from afar as American and Israeli strikes pound his country.
“I literally saw hell,” said the 34-year-old Iranian Kurd in Sulaimaniyah, Iraqi Kurdistan’s second city, as he showed AFP photos he took during recent anti-government protests of bodies lying on the bloodied ground.
But his biggest worry today is for the safety of his family back home.
With the Internet under a blackout in Iran, Sheikhi said he relies on a friend who only occasionally manages to get online.
“He calls my father and tells me how they are. That is the only way I get news of them,” he said.
