In two separate incidents this week, two Kurdish men have been killed while crossing the Iranian border.
Mohammad Ghaderi, a kolbar from Shuy village in Baneh, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), was shot and killed by Iranian border guards on 7 May while crossing the border of Baneh city.
The border guards used a Kalashnikov rifle and gave Ghaderi no prior warning, according to the Hengaw human rights group.
Ghaderi was married and leaves behind five children.
Two days later, on 9 May, 23-year-old Salar Ahmadi was also killed in the KRI by border guards. The shooting took place in the mountainous Qandil region, between Sardasht in West Azerbaijan Province and the KRI, as reported by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network.
Ahmadi was among a group of kolbars who were shot at with DShk rifles, according to Rudaw. His body has yet to be returned to his family in the village of Nelas, Sardasht.
Kolbars are porters who transport goods on their backs across long distances along Iran’s borders, primarily in the impoverished, mountainous Kurdish regions near Iraq.
They are often targeted by Iranian border guards, with 43 killed or injured during a two-week period in November of last year, as revealed by a report from Hengaw.
