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A Quiet Invasion

A Quiet Invasion: Episode 1

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - A Quiet Invasion, Episode 1

20 years after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Kirsty Norman tells her story of being taken hostage.

In August 1990, when Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, Kirsty Norman was taken hostage. She recounts the story of what happened to her, based on her diaries and recollections.

In August 1990 Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait. Kirsty Norman was working for the Museum of Islamic Art, and due to fly out on the day of the invasion. Then tanks started rolling past her apartment, but it was a quiet invasion: The gardener out watering the palm trees as they passed. Two weeks later she was taken hostage, bringing her family history full circle as her father and grandparents had been interned by the Japanese.  

20 years after those momentous events, Kirsty recounts the story of what happened to her, in two moving programmes based on her diaries and recollections.

She tried to escape across the desert but was caught and put in an Iraqi internment camp. For the first time, Kirsty understood the position of being a refugee - displaced, and completely without security. 

Released a month later, she came back very shaken, and very angry: The guilt of leaving the men behind, and anger at the way the British Embassy in Kuwait and the Foreign Office in London were handling the situation, which might now endanger their lives. 

The events of August 1990 still vividly etched on her memory, she returns to Kuwait to find out how friends and colleagues there dealt with the events that tore their lives apart so suddenly. And we find out what happened to the Islamic Art collection she was working with. 

Producer: Ruth Evans
A Ruth Evans production for Radio 4.

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20 years after Iraq invaded Kuwait, Kirsty Norman tells her story of being taken hostage

In August 1990, when Iraqi troops invaded Kuwait, Kirsty Norman was taken hostage. She recounts the story of what happened to her, based on her diaries and recollections

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