The Romania authorities, through the intervention of United Nations, the French and U.S. embassies, reconsidered their first decision to deport Dr. Karadaghi back to Iraq. Under this pressure they gave permission for her to leave Romania and to go where she wanted to. However, the Romanian government did nothing to facilitate the process. Dr. Karadaghi had to make all the necessary arrangements to leave Romania.
In France:
She started receiving threatening letters and notified the Agency for the Protection of Refugees and Expatriates in Paris. They sent two officers from the Ministry of Interior, who informed Dr. Karadaghi that in France there are a lot of Iraqi loyalties and they had several reports of other Kurds in the same situation as she and they could do very little. The two officers advised Dr. Karadaghi to move out of Paris to the south of France, keep a low profile and not get involved in any anti-Iraqi activities. They promised to keep her whereabouts confidential and to keep a surveillance for a short time.
In 1988 the first news of massive chemical bombardments came to the attention of the world, and Kurds everywhere started expressing their discontentment through demonstrations and rallies denouncing the atrocities committed against the Kurdish people. In one chemical attack against the town of Halabja, 5,000 men, women and children were killed. Dr. Karadaghi felt she could not stay silent. She began participating in the demonstrations, conferences, and public speeches. It brought her back to the limelight. She was visible and that could have hurt her.
In 1989, after a brief visit to her family in the U.S., she applied to the fellowship program at Georgetown University Medical Hospital and was accepted. In her free time she was a volunteer with the Kurdish Human Rights Watch and assisted newly arrived refugees to the U.S., victims of chemical bombardment, the majority women and children with diverse medical and social side effects. She started assisting them and providing treatment for the serious cases and would spend the next few years providing support for the Kurdish refugee women in the U.S.
Dr. Karadaghi studied and researched the impact of war and violence on the mental health of refugees. She was invited to attend the First Conference on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Refugees in Stockholm, Sweden. Her research is published in a book, Aniidst Peril and Pain, the Plight of the World's Refugees, published by the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Pary Karadaghi is a member American College of Nutrition, American Hypertension Society, and the Kurdish American Medical Association. She has received numerous nominations and awards, including the First Young Investigators Award on Nutrition, 1991; one of the Top Ten Nationwide Most Resourceful Women Distinction Award, 1992; the Tides Foundation Award for Human Rights, 1992; the United Nations Human Rights Conference in Vienna, Austria, 1993; the Community Leadership Award, 1995. She was nominated for the 1995 Northern Virginia Volunteer of the Year and received the J.C. Penney Golden Rule Award for Community Leadership, 1995.
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