Rasoul Ghalandari, a 21-year-old father of two from the village of Balajuk in Khoy, West Azerbaijan Province, and Soheyl Ferdowsi, a 20-year-old kolbar from the village of Dezavar in Paveh, Kermanshah Province, have been killed by Iranian border guards in the border areas of the two counties.
An informed source in Khoy told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) that border guards shot and wounded Ghalandari on 22 July in the border highlands near Balajuk, in Qotur District of Khoy.
The source said that, after wounding him, the border guards approached Ghalandari and killed him by firing two more shots.
His body was taken to the forensic medicine department in Khoy and has not yet been handed over to his family.
KHRN has also learned that the following day, on 23 July, border guards opened fire on Ferdowsi at close range and without prior warning near a border post in the village of Dezavar, in Nowsud District of Paveh, killing him instantly.
A relative of Ferdowsi said he was carrying only a few empty plastic jerrycans when border guards shot him in the back near the village’s border post.
After being taken to the forensic medicine department in Paveh, his body was handed over to his family that evening and buried in Mariwan.
Figures compiled by KHRN show that, over the past three weeks, border guards have shot dead four kolbars in the border areas of Nowsud, Marivan and Sarvabad, as well as two other civilians, including an 11-year-old child, in the border areas of Sarvabad and Khoy.
