The Kurds are the world’s largest stateless peoples, spread across Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran.
For more than a century, they have endured repression, forced displacement, and campaigns of extermination — from the chemical gassing of Halabja in 1988 to the Anfal genocide that killed tens of thousands.
When the extremist group DAESH (ISIS) rose to power in the 2010s, entire cities were displaced, and Kurdish communities, who were already shaped by decades of persecution and repression, were again fighting to exist.
Amid the destruction, murals began to appear on the walls of schools, underpasses, and roadsides, serving as public expressions of grief, pride, and resistance.
Kathleen DeWitt, who worked in the region as Logistics and Program Manager for two humanitarian NGOs at the time, photographed some of these pieces of art. She described:
“All of these are in response to the violence and war we were surrounded with. Defiance in the face of those who would like to eradicate Kurds.”
Painting the future in the midst of war
In Rojava, northern Syria, the Kurdish-led self-governed region became known for its defense forces and for its vision of equality, pluralism, and local democracy.
Here, on the walls of Amude, murals began to appear during the war against DAESH.
There aren’t plaques or signatures, just scenes of daily courage.
One wall shows a woman holding a dove by an open window.
Another, a bird breaking a chain.
Elsewhere, a woman with a blue headscarf gazes over bombed buildings, her flowing hair painted across the ruins.
As is often the case with art, it doesn’t soften reality but holds it—especially when it’s beyond words to convey.
Remembering what was nearly erased
Across the border, in Iraqi Kurdistan, towns like Akre and Duhok became frontline cities for sheltering families who had been displaced.
In Akre, a long series of murals climbs a hillside.
Each section represents a chapter in Kurdish history: the gassing of Halabja in 1988, the Anfal campaign, the mass displacements following the invasion of Kuwait.
Scenes of soldiers, families, and grieving women unfold across cracked concrete, their images punctured by holes.
But, in the final scenes, the imagery changes to waterfalls and greenery offering a glimpse of peace imagined and remembered.
Claiming equality
Together, the murals of Amude and Akre form a conversation across time and place.
In one city, paint was used to resist erasure in the moment and to claim visibility during war.
In another, it became a means of remembering what had already been lost.
One of Akre’s murals reimagines one of the most recognizable photographs in modern history: soldiers raising a flag after battle. Here, though, it is schoolgirls who lift the Kurdish flag, their feet planted not on rubble but on stacks of books.
It’s a striking reversal. The image transforms a symbol of conquest into a claim for equality and for the future of Kurdistan. Instead of victory through force, it shows victory through knowledge and collective ascent.
Like the walls themselves, the mural takes up space long denied to women and to Kurds alike—an act of both remembrance and rewriting.
Remembering, enduring, and rebuilding
While it’s not known who created these works, they changed how those streets felt.
In the middle of destruction, they offered a different kind of strength: the ability to mark presence, to say we are still here.
From Iraq to Syria, from Akre to Amude, these murals form a visual archive of Kurdish endurance.
They show how beauty can carry history when formal records are destroyed, and how art can outlast the politics that seek to silence it.
Beauty is a way people remember, endure and rebuild.
About the Author:
By training, Kathleen DeWitt is an engineer and a conflict resolution professional. She has worked for industry, government, academia, and NGOs on five continents. These photographs were taken when she was an aid worker in humanitarian settings in two of the four Kurdistan regions, during the war against DAESH.