Iranian border guards have killed two kolbars after opening fire on two separate groups of kolbars since yesterday in Baneh, Kurdistan Province.
On 9 January, Shoresh Khargoushi, a 33-year-old father of six from the village of Ziveh Jik in Salmas, West Azerbaijan Province, was shot dead by border guards in the border areas of Baneh.
Khargoushi was shot at close range without warning and died instantly with two bullet wounds to the chest, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
His body has not yet been returned to his family.
Another kolbar, identified as Mirza Ahmadi, was killed by border guards’ gunfire in the Zali border area of Baneh this morning, when border guards targeted a group of kolbars at close range and without warning.
Ahmadi was a 43-year-old father of two from the village of Hanjaneh in Baneh.
According to the KHRN’s annual report, at least 29 Kurdish kolbars, including two children, died in the border areas of West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan and Kermanshah provinces in 2023.
Of these, 19 were shot directly by the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran and one died in a car accident while being chased and fleeing from the border forces, three fell from heights, two succumbed to frostbite, two drowned, one suffered a heart attack and one died in a road accident along the kolbar routes.
