Communities mourn death of Kurdish environmental activists who fought Iran wildfires

PAVEH, Iran — En route from Sanandaj to Paveh, Kermanshah Province this week, I saw people toil on farmland, and people working as porters, or kolbars, to make a living. From distant forests, smoke billowed into the sky. 

Paveh is reeling from the deaths of Mukhtar Khandani, Bilal Amini and Yasir Karimi, environmental activists who fought and lost raging wildfires on the Marakhel mountains, three hours from the city, on June 28.

The three young men were members of the Zhiway Pawa Society, a Kurdish non-governmental organisation working to raise environmental consciousness across Iran. Environmentalists fill a fire-fighting void in the area, where Iranian state services are notoriously lacking. 

Environmental activists work at life-threatening risk to extinguish mountainside fires. Mukhtar had spoken to Rudaw English on June 6 to tell us that some Zhiway Pawa members had been injured while trying to beat back the flames. 

Tehran is accused not just of abandoning locals to fight the fires themselves, but of setting the forests of Iranian Kurdistan alight. Four environmental activists died in summer 2018 after trying to put out fires sparked when the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) bombed suspected positions of armed Kurdish opposition groups in the Mariwan area, as reported by leading Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw. 

This summer is proving no easier. The head of the local Department for Protection of the Environment  Ferydoon Yawari said that 1,400 hectares of  pasture and forest have been destroyed in recent fires in Marakhel and at Boozin National Park near Paveh.

Though Kurdish areas of Iran are still gripped by the coronavirus outbreak, a large number of activists and environments flocked to Paveh to show solidarity with the families of the deceased. 

I arrived at the Zhiway Pawa office at around noon. Organisation members were busy preparing posters and portraits to pay homage to their sacrifices, sporadically bursting into tears. 

"Wildfires have been raging across forests in our areas for the past few days. And as the only non-governmental organization in Paveh, we put out fires. Around noon on Sunday we received the news that a wildfire had broken out on Marakhel mountain, three hours from here, on the borders of the Kurdistan Region [of Iraq]," Zhiway Pawa team member Syamak Sayaf told Rudaw English. 

"A group of seven of us rushed to the scene. When we arrived, we saw a huge fire burning down the oak trees and that a thick, black smoke had filled the area.”

Syamak warned his fellow volunteers that they did not have to take the risk fighting the fire because the area was "unsafe" due to present landmines.

"But Mukhtar and another four friends went ahead, which worried me. They faced the fire with bravery and courage, and extinguished much of it," he said.

Syamak stops for a moment, touching his hairless head and sighing. “They were working at it for two hours. At around 5 pm, a giant plume of smoke rise, and I immediately knew something was going to go wrong, and I knew I had to reach out to them.”

“A group of us rushed to them. The fire had shrunk, but the smoke kept growing. Another two environmental activists had already been harmed by the smoke, but they were ok. But as I got closer, I saw the most tragic thing I’ve ever seen; I saw Mukhtar, Bilal and Yasin had burned to death."

"From the shape of the dead bodies, it appeared they had done their best to escape, but failed," he said.

Organisation head Ashna Hassan Zada told Rudaw English of the broader social activism her deceased  team members had performed. 

"Our members were serving in many other areas, not just in protecting the environment,” Ashna told Rudaw English. “Mukhtar was also involved in women’s rights and humanitarian work," she said. 

Mukhtar was relentless in his activism even as coronavirus hit Iran’s Kurdish communities full force, Ashna said. He set up "The Zhiyani Volunteers…distributing masks for free to the people and cleaning public places."

Her fond recollections of her teammate were put to a stop when the police called her to warn that she and her fellow mourners could not grieve at the graves of the dead because of coronavirus containment measures.

“There are many more obstacles in our way,” Ashna said after the police officer hung up. “But we must be galvanised by the death of our colleagues to keep going, to protect our environment and human values."

A mournful procession 

At 2 pm, a large number of environmental activists from Sanandaj, Baneh, Mariwan and Divandareh headed to the town of Nawsood, 45 kilometers west of Paveh, to extend their condolences to Mukhtar's family; I was in tow.

As soon as we arrived at the home of Mukhtar’s family, we hear the wails of mourning family members. Holding a portrait of her son with one hand, a crutch to stand with in the other, Khandani's elderly mother cried. His sister tearfully called him a "patriot". 

"Our brother dedicated his life to humanitarian work. He’d sometimes do construction work and spend the money on extinguishing forest fires,” his eldest brother Shahrokh Khandani said. "So he never had the time to get married."

We next headed to the village of Shimsher, five kilometers east of Paveh, where second wildfire victim Yasir had been living. In fresh memory of the bushfire, roadside ashes smouldered and small plumes of smoke continued to rise. 

"We are saddened by the death of a humble and humanitarian person," Sabah Tari, a friend of Karimi, told Rudaw English. "Poverty and lack of a job forced him to work as a kolbar too."

Tari said that Yasir is survived by three daughters.

Before dusk fell, we arrived at the house of the third and last victim; 31-year-old Bilal, a father of two who had been married for six years. 

As soon as we arrived in the village of Sirias, east of Paveh, people cloaked in black lined either side of the main entrance to the village, welcoming the attendees of Bilal’s funeral.

"Our family and many others are grieving. We call on the government to put effort into preventing forest wildfires, so that such disasters don’t happen again," Fazil Karimi, Bilal's brother, told Rudaw English.

"It’s the responsibility of the government, not ordinary people like my brother, to do this work," Fazil said, choking up with tears.

Family visits ended as dusk fell. The environmental activists bid farewell to each other in hushed voices, splitting to head to their respective hometowns.  

Translation by Zhelwan Z. Wali