Mehrdad Abdullahzadeh, a 20-year-old Kurdish porter, was fatally shot by an Iranian border patrol on Sunday, near Sardasht on the Iran-Iraq border, adding to the 44 casualties from last year which saw a 90% increase in porter deaths and injuries.
Abdullahzadeh was killed by direct gunfire from Iranian border patrol forces along the Iran-Iraq border on the evening of 14 April. The shooting caused him to fall from a mountain, resulting in his immediate death. Abdullahzadeh’s identity and the circumstances of his death were reported by Kolber News.
Statistics from Kolber News indicate that in the past year, a total of 444 porters were killed or injured in the border regions of West Azerbaijan and Kurdish-majority areas of Iran including Kermanshah, due to direct military shootings, avalanches, frostbite, landmines, falls from mountains or heights, and other incidents. Of these, 44 porters, accounting for 10%, were killed, and 400, making up 90%, were injured. The report also notes that 84% of these incidents involved direct shootings by military forces.
Additionally, of the 444 Kurdish porters affected last year in the Kurdish-majority border areas, 37 were children under 18 years of age. Last year’s 90% increase in casualties among porters, signifies a significant rise in encountered risks.
