Sydney sisters return to Iran homeland after 38 years – only for history to repeat itself
The Iran that Melika and Betissa rediscovered after 38 years was a 'wondrous' land until, once more, the bombs began to fall.
The Sydney sisters had fled their birthplace Iran as children in 1987, amid the violence and the tumult of the Iran-Iraq war.
With memories coloured by the uncertainty of their sudden departure nearly four decades earlier, they found a homeland wildly different from their expectations.
'We've traveled extensively … we've been to lots and lots of third world countries. And so that was our impression of Iran,' Betissa told the Guardian. 'But what we experienced was the complete opposite: we experienced a very well developed, very modern country.
'On top of that, you had this incredibly rich cultural overlay where it almost felt like you were drunk from the richness of the sights and the sounds and the smells – the beauty of the culture and the history, but also the people.
'I've never experienced anything like this level of hospitality, where everyone you meet is invested in you having a good time.'
But conflict has come again to stalk Iran. The day before the sisters and their parents, who had also travelled from Australia, were due to fly to Istanbul to reunite with extended family members from all over the world, they were woken before dawn by frantic calls from friends and family back home desperate to know they were OK.
'In 1987 we fled to Australia from Tehran because of a war. It was so strange for history to be repeating itself 38 years later,' Melika said.
The Middle East descended into further turmoil on 13 June, when Israel launched a series of airstrikes on what it said were nuclear facilities and military targets inside Iran.
Israel has maintained its ongoing bombardments were 'pre-emptive and precise strikes' that are lawful and necessary to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and using them in the future.
Iran has responded with barrages of missiles fired into Israeli territory, and said Israel's offensive was illegal under international law. It said it sought an end to hostilities, but would not negotiate while the conflict continued.
According to local reporting, at least 639 people have been killed in Iran, while at least 25 have died in Israel.
On the morning of Friday 13 June, Betissa and Melika woke to discover a city in chaos, with airstrikes hitting a hotel less than a kilometre from where they were staying.
Their flight, due to leave the next morning, could not fly out of Tehran, so the sisters hastily called the van driver booked to take them to the airport, asking if he could instead drive them to the Turkish border, nearly 900km away, immediately.
He agreed and soon arrived to drive them 12 hours to Bazargan border crossing, a gateway into the relative peace of eastern Turkey.
They stopped only three times: twice for fuel, bypassing the hours-long lines at most petrol stations for quieter stops. The family's third stop was a military checkpoint, where they were flagged stopped.
'First they took Dad and all our passports for half an hour,' Betissa said. 'They just took him inside a building and told us to stay out.
'After half an hour, they came and took Mum … the driver was like, 'Oh, this has never happened to me before'. But after an hour, luckily, they both came back with all our passports and we were on our way again.'
There were further anxieties. As the family drove, they were being given conflicting information about whether the Turkish border was still open, or whether the Iranian regime had sealed the country shut. The sisters were told by phone they should turn around and drive through the night back to the capital.
'But from my perspective, I was like, 'I'd rather sleep in a barn on the border',' Betissa said.
As Turkish territory approached, the military and police checkpoints became more frequent, those manning them more interrogative.
But as night fell the border remained open, and the family members each paid an exit fee to escape the country.
They were then stuck for two hours in 'no man's land' – the patch of barren territory between two countries, but belonging to neither – where people were lined up sitting on suitcases in the dust. Once again, the sisters' father was taken away to be interrogated and again he was returned.
Finally, more than 15 hours after they'd fled Tehran, the sisters and their parents crossed into Turkish territory. In the calmer days that followed, they drove and flew across the country to reach Istanbul.
'We had a reunion with our husbands, our children, and the rest of the family in Istanbul airport, which was very emotional,' Betissa said.
The escalating conflict remains intensely personal for Betissa and Melika.
They had been in touch by phone with their driver in the days after their escape, but since a nationwide internet blackout have not heard whether he is safe, whether he is alive.
Their homeland now holds a reawakened affection.
'The country we had just rediscovered and fallen in love with was getting destroyed, nearly all the beautiful cities we had visited attacked,' Melika said.
'It was surreal as just the night before the attacks we were reliving some of our experiences from the Iraq war.
'I was remembering how we all had to hide underground during the raids and how terrified I was as a child. These conflicts have lasting impacts on the civilian population.'
Betissa said friends in Tehran were describing on WhatsApp messages the chaos the continues to roil the country.
'How there's no fuel … bakeries have massive lines, supermarket shelves are starting to be empty,' she said.
'People are trying to leave Tehran, but all the roads are completely choked up because there is no fuel - people are basically … abandoning their cars in the middle of the road.'
Betissa said while airstrikes might be targeting particular sites in Iran, 'that doesn't mean that the areas around those sites are not getting hit'.
'They may be targeting a general who lives in an apartment building, but everyone else in that building is dying.'
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