Sajida Talfah

Wife of Saddam Hussein

Sajida and Saddam had five children together. Their marriage was arranged when they were children. She was said to have been two years older than him. They met when Saddam was about 21 years old.

In 1964, their first son Uday was born, followed by Qusay in 1966. Their first daughter Raghad was born in 1968. Followed by a second daughter, Rana in 1969, and finally, their youngest daughter Hala was born in 1972.

In 1986, Saddam married another woman, Samira Shahbandar, while still married to Sajida. Sajida was enraged, and Uday was also angry over his father's new wife. Uday took it as an insult to his mother and also believed that his inheritance was endangered by Saddam taking a new wife. In October 1988, at a party thrown in honour of Suzanne Mubarak, the wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Uday beat and stabbed Kamel Hana Gegeo to death. Uday believed that it was Kamel who had introduced Saddam and Samira and that he had arranged their meetings. Although her husband married another woman, Sajida and Saddam never divorced.

Sajida hardly ever appeared in public with her husband, so for many years, her existence was little known to the Iraqi people. However, when rumours surfaced that Saddam had married another woman and that his family life was now strained, more pictures and videos appeared in the Iraqi media of Saddam and Sajida, as well as them with their children. These pictures and videos were intended to make it seem as if Saddam's family life was not strained.

Sajida, along with many members of her family, fled Iraq in 1990 because of the Persian Gulf War, leaving Iraq before the bombings began. There are many different reports on where the Hussein family settled, but a possible location is Mauritania. The Hussein family returned to Iraq after the war was over.