Iranian border guards shot and killed 29-year-old Arkan Balvaseh, a kolbar (cross-border trader) as he was crossing between Iran and Iraq on the morning of Friday 21 June, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), an independent non-profit and non-partisan organisation based in France.
Kolbars are almost exclusively men and boys, mainly from Iranian Kurdistan, but also from other parts of Kurdistan, who work as cross-border traders between the different parts of Kurdistan. Since the division of Kurdistan into four parts, most kolbar trading has become illegal, and they have been labelled smugglers. Most kolbars take on the work as a last resort because of the lack of development and paid work in the various parts of Kurdistan. The journeys they undertake are extremely dangerous, involving numerous hazards, such as minefields, high mountain passes, cliffs, gullies, extreme weather conditions and bandits, not to mention the risk of being fired upon by border guards. The kolbars face all of this while carrying heavy loads, often on foot.
A source who spoke to the KHRN said that Iranian border guards attacked a group of kolbars up in the mountains near the border with Iraq, and fired on them “at close range and without warning, resulting in the death of Arkan Balvaseh.”
The killing of kolbars by Iranian border guards is not unusual. The KHRN reports that in the last four weeks another two were shot dead and one drowned in a river while trying to escape from the guards, and the group has also documented injuries from gunshots, and beatings.
And in May, Hengaw human rights group based in Norway documented the cases of two other kolbars shot dead by Iranian border guards while crossing the border between Iran and Iraq.
