The Children of Camp Ashraf
New: Documentaries
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1h 24m
Directed by Sara Moein • Documentary • 2024 • 83 minutes
Parwin and Amir grew up in a military camp. As toddlers they were sent away by their parents who wanted to focus on fighting the Mulla-regime of Iran. 30 years later they are still hoping to reunite with their mothers. Will they ever succeed?
An untold scandal involving around a thousand children world wide, addressing the most urgent issues of our time: exile, identity, radicalization and our inability to see the needs of vulnerable children.
"My mother loves the Mujaheddin and its leaders. But she loves me too. I wonder - who does she love the most... ". Amir Vafa's mother joined the People's Mujahedin as a young and enthusiastic teenager. At the time, the People's Mujahedin, with its strange mix of Marxism and Islamism, was one of the larger organizations fighting the Shah's regime in Iran. When the Shah was overthrown in 1979, the People's Mujahedin continued the struggle against the Khomeini clerics from their new base, Camp Ashraf in neighboring Iraq -- a country that Iran was in a prolonged military conflict with at the time.
When the Gulf War broke out in 1990, the children, growing up at the military base, were sent to supporters around the world. About a hundred of these unaccompanied minors ended up in Sweden. Amir, Parwin, Atefeh and Hanif were placed with their new foster families who raised them to become martyrs in the struggle against theocratic Iran. In The Children of Camp Ashraf, children from this political cult speak on camera for the first time.
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