Iranian border guards today detained two kolbars, identified as Yousef and Farzad, in the Hangeh-ye Zhal border area of Baneh, Kurdistan Province, and after interrogating them for about half an hour, shot them with shotguns, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) has learned.
The two kolbars from Mahabad, West Azerbaijan Province, were shot in the legs from just a few metres away and left injured.
Yousef, who suffered dozens of pellet wounds in his leg, was immediately taken to Salahuddin Ayoubi Hospital in Baneh.
This is the third such incident in the last two weeks in the Baneh border area, where Kolbars have been shot while being detained by Iranian border guards.
In an earlier incident on 30 January, border guards ambushed a group of kolbars in the same area, and after the kolbars tried to escape, Behnam Sharifian, a 30-year-old from Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, was arrested. After forcing Sharifian to carry all the loads abandoned by the other kolbars to the border post, the border guards physically abused him with rifle butts.
The border guards asked Sharifian to contact the Baneh emergency services and report that he had been injured, and after he made the call, the border guards shot him in the legs at close range with shotguns.
The kolbars identified several of the border guards involved in the arrests, torture and shootings as Mostafa Moradi, Mehdi Vahedi and Armin Fattahi.
