ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A fatal car crash in Sulaimani’s Raparin administration on Tuesday claimed four lives and injured three others from the same family.
“A three-wheel motorcycle swerved sharply in the wrong direction. Because of that, the driver [of the car] tried to avoid hitting the motorcycle and crashed,” an eyewitness to the tragic accident told Rudaw.
The incident took place in Sulaimani province between Rania and Qaladze in Raparin.
Initial investigations have revealed that a three-wheeled motorcycle abruptly entered a two-lane road and switched to the lane in the opposing direction. In order to avoid a collision, the car carrying seven family members maneuvered and lost control, overturning the vehicle.
Amina Ahmad, 30, along with her two toddler daughters, Mila and Dila, were killed in the fatal crash. Haryad Simko,11, the children’s uncle, also died.
Mila and Dila’s father, Hemin Simko, as well as his father and sister, were reported to be in a stable condition.
“His son and daughter-in-law had been staying with him for two days. Today, he wanted to drive them back home [to Qaladza],” Hussein Abdullah, family relative said in reference to Simko, Hemin’s father.
Raperin Police stated that they have arrested the driver of the three-wheeled motorcycle after determining that he was at-fault.
Road accidents claim hundreds of lives annually in the Kurdistan Region as a result of reckless driving, speeding, and inadequate infrastructure.
However, traffic fatalities and injuries in the Kurdistan Region have plummeted by 60 percent over the last five years, a senior official from the Region’s ministry of interior said in late January, attributing the sharp decline to the implementation of new traffic technologies.
A KRG report from November shows that fatalities from car accidents declined from 558 in 2018 to 235 in 2025.
