Iranian border guards shoot four kolbars dead in one day

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Iranian security forces have killed four kolbars in the Kurdish west of the country in the space of just 24 hours, according to witnesses and a Kurdish human rights watchdog.

Members of Iranian border guards fired upon a group of kolbars near the village of Qalarash in the Sardasht area in the early hours of Wednesday morning, killing three of them.

“Three kolbars, namely 22-year-old Zanko Ahmadi, Soroush Makari and 25-year-old father-of-one Zanest Hassannejad were killed,” the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported.

One journalist in the city of Sardasht, who asked to stay anonymous because of the sensitivity of the issue, told Rudaw that Ministry of Intelligence agents have informed all journalists in and around Sardasht to avoid publicizing the incident, or face arrest. The journalist confirmed to Rudaw that three kolbars had been killed near Qalarash.

In a separate incident on Tuesday night, the border guards killed 40-year-old father-of-three Jalal Khedzri as he tried to transport livestock from Iran into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq through the mountains of their shared border.

The killing of the four kolbars came in the days immediately after an announcement by the head of Iran's border guards that his forces were to deploy drones and sensors to a 1,000 kilometre stretch of border with the Kurdistan Region, including at Sardasht, to prevent goods smuggling and other illegal travel through the porous mountain border.

Border guard chief Ahmad Ali Goudarzi said on Monday that his forces plan to create a smart barrier in the border area and “…the infrastructure for this purpose include optical tools, electronics, drones and any new technologies, light operational vehicles and the equipment needed for the guards.”

Around 70,000 kolbars are active in the Kurdish area of Iran, most of whom carry untaxed goods on their back from the Kurdistan Region into Iran to make a living for their families. Hundreds are killed or wounded every year at the hands of Iranian border guards and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

KHRN recorded 245 incidents in which kolbars were either killed or injured in 2019 while working; 57 kolbars were killed when directly shot at by the Iranian military or by border guards.

In the same period, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights tracking violations against kolbars estimated that 237 kolbars were killed or wounded by Iranian border guards. Another 23 kolbars froze to death in the mountains, drowned in rivers, or fell from cliffs, Hengaw said.