Having lived in Riyadh during the Gulf War, Rufaida recounts witnessing Scud missiles landing near her house
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#SaudiArabia #GulfWar #GasMask
Read the full story: https://bit.ly/3fkZbwf
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km
#SaudiArabia #GulfWar #GasMask
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00:00Kuwait has been invaded by Iraq and Saudi Arabia will be involved.
00:04So we need to prepare both mentally and we need to secure the house.
00:13I was 9 years old then. I was in Saudi Arabia, Riyadh.
00:16My father, he was a journalist in Riyadh.
00:19So one morning he told us that Kuwait has been invaded by Iraq and Saudi Arabia will be involved.
00:26So we need to prepare both mentally and we need to secure the house.
00:30So at first I was excited because I never thought in my life I would ever witness a war.
00:36The fear factor wasn't there. It started coming in only after the war started.
00:40My parents, they started preparing the emergency suitcase with belongings and medicines and also some instant food and jewelry and cash of course.
00:51There was a possibility of a chemical attack, that's what we were told.
00:54So we secured the AC ducts and the gaps around the windows. We just sealed them with sticking tape and all.
01:02They told us to secure the windows also by putting cello tape diagonally across to prevent it from shattering.
01:11I also noticed that there were a lot of Kuwaitis, they were entering the city and there were a lot of Kuwaiti cars and all that.
01:19Our house was near the Ministry of Interior. So there were empty buildings over there, newly constructed, they were vacant.
01:28So the Saudi government allotted those buildings to these fleeing Kuwaitis and soon it came to be called as the Kuwaiti quarters.
01:38The most memorable experience for me would be the gas mask.
01:42When my father purchased the gas mask and got it home.
01:46Initially we just couldn't believe that there are gas masks at home.
01:50And then there was a set of instructions that came along with the gas mask and they were quite easy to follow.
01:56So we used to practice just in case if there is an actual attack so we need to be prepared.
02:03So we used to wear and follow the instructions to perfect the movements and all that.
02:10When the war started actually, there were a lot of sirens going off every now and then.
02:16And you could hear the missiles flying above us because our house was close to the Ministry of Interior.
02:23So that's when the fear factor settled in.
02:25Missiles actually landed somewhere close by and it was the most thunderous sound I had ever heard.
02:31And the windows just shattered and even the car windows that were parked outside got shattered.
02:39I still remember the sound of that missile.
02:42We used to carry the gas mask to school because they told us to come with it.
02:47So my classmates used to float their gas masks and all that.
02:52And then I saw that it came in various shapes, all these gas masks.
02:56My father, once he brought the MRE home, he got it in a conference.
03:03MRE is a meal ready to eat.
03:05It was in a brown pouch.
03:08When you break the seal, some kind of thermoreaction takes place and the food inside gets warm.
03:17So we got to taste meatballs, which the soldiers, the American soldiers and the Saudi soldiers,
03:25they were served these MREs in the war zones.
03:29So we got to taste it.
03:31It was actually decent.
03:32It was pretty tasty.
03:34One of the things that happened with the gas mask was I had caught in chickenpox during that period.
03:41So my eldest brother, he used to wear the gas mask and come and visit me.
03:46Yeah, so that's all the use of the gas mask, I think.
03:50Because the actual chemical war never took place, thankfully.
03:53After the war got over, my father, along with some other colleagues of his,
03:58they went to Kuwait for a pest conference.
04:01And he returned with an unused bullet as a souvenir.