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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Iranian border guards on Monday stopped a group of kolbars in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province, beating them with guns and sticks, a human rights group has said.
A group of five kolbars were stopped by Iranian border guards on Monday morning near the border village of Issa Golik in Chaldoran county, according to the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN).
A well-informed source told KHRN that the kolbars were beaten up with sticks and guns by the border guards, and they were later transferred to hospital to get treatment.
Video footage by KHRN shows the kolbars bodies showing marks of assault.
Chaldoran county falls on the Iranian border with Turkey. Both Iranian and Turkish border guards have previously persecuted kolbars in the area.
In April, a kolbar that survived detention and torture by border guards told Rudaw of his experience after his companion was killed under torture.
Kolbars are semi-legal porters who transport untaxed goods across the Kurdistan Region-Iran border and sometimes the Iran-Turkey border. They are constantly targeted by Iranian border guards and are sometimes victims of natural disasters. Many are pushed into the profession by poverty and a lack of alternative employment, particularly in Iran's Kurdish provinces.
At least 21 kolbars were “either killed, lost their lives, or injured” on the border areas in June, the KHRN said in its latest monthly report, adding that of those at least 10 were shot by Iranian, Turkish, or Iraqi border forces.
Earlier this month, a kolbar was found near the Iran-Kurdistan Region border a day after he was shot dead. The incident came just days after a group of kolbars were shot at by Iranian border guards in the Hangazhal area of Baneh.
Last month, a kolbar was killed and another wounded when Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) opened fire on them in Hawraman Takht (Uraman Takht) in Kurdistan province.
Amnesty International addressed the brutal treatment kolbars face in their 2020 human rights report released in April.
“Iran's border guards continued to unlawfully shoot scores of unarmed Kurdish kolbars who work under cruel and inhumane conditions, as cross-border porters between the Kurdistan regions of Iran and Iraq, killing at least 40 men and injuring dozens of others,” the human rights watchdog said, sourcing Kurdish human rights organizations.
An estimated 52 kolbars were killed and 147 injured in 2020, according to data given to Rudaw English by the KHRN. Forty-six of those killed were shot by Iranian or Turkish border guards.
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