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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A young Peshmerga fighter and father of three on Saturday won a brand new 2025 Toyota SUV, courtesy of the Pashivi Rudaw program. The competition, which encouraged participants to comment on Rudaw’s Facebook posts, received over 574 million comments during Ramadan.
The program, running from the first day of Ramadan on February 28 until the eve of Eid al-Fitr on Saturday, required participants to comment Pashivi Rudaw - Kurdish for Rudaw Iftar - on Rudaw’s Facebook pages to increase their chances of winning.
Eid al-Fitr, the “festival of breaking the fast”, is celebrated at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan by Muslims worldwide. There are about 1.9 billion Muslims worldwide, approximately 25 percent of the world’s population. The Eid al-Fitr holiday began in the Kurdistan Region on Sunday.
In total there were more than 574 million comments during the month of Ramadan.
The prize, a Toyota Urban Cruiser SUV, was awarded to Shamsaddin Omer, a 34-year-old Peshmerga fighter who wrote over 150 comments daily. “I was really excited. Every day, I would write 100, 150, or even 200 comments, because I did not own a car,” Omer told Rudaw.
The father of three, who does not own a car, said he was excited to win and plans to use the vehicle to visit family during the Eid holidays.
The car is the latest 2025 model of the Toyota Urban Cruiser SUV, equipped with the latest technology and very fuel efficient.
Sardar Bibani, president of the Sardar Group of Companies and Toyota’s representative in Iraq, highlighted that the prize car “is the latest model, which we call the Toyota Land Cruiser little brother. It is an environmentally friendly vehicle with an automatic transmission and many advanced safety features. It is excellent.”
Bibani explained that his company “participated in the program on behalf of Toyota. The most important thing is that we met a lot of good people from Kurdistan and we were able to provide many good things for our youth.”
In addition to the car, Pashivi Rudaw distributed 29 televisions, six vacation tickets to Turkey, and 114 master’s degree scholarships for university students.
In addition to giving out gifts, Pashivi Rudaw also included donations from entrepreneurs and nightly meals with families in the Kurdistan Region. Additionally, there were recitations of the Muslim holy book, the Quran, and performance of religious songs during the program.
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