More than six months after Soroush Karami, an 18-year-old from Kermanshah, disappeared during the December 2025–January 2026 protests in the city, it has emerged that security forces shot him dead and mistakenly handed his body over to the family of Amir-Ali Heydari, a 17-year-old who was also killed during the protests.
Subsequent exhumations established that Karami had been buried under Heydari’s name, while Heydari’s body had been held unidentified for several months before being buried in Kermanshah.
Karami disappeared in the city’s Maskan neighbourhood on 8 January, and his family sought information about his fate for more than six months.
Several people who had been arrested during the protests and later released told the family that Karami had been arrested and, after five months, transferred to solitary confinement in Kermanshah Central Prison on charges of “enmity against God” (moharebeh).
This information was later found to be incorrect.
Several sources close to the two families confirmed the news to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN), saying: “Some time ago, after seeing a photograph of Amir-Ali Heydari on social media, an employee of the Kermanshah Legal Medicine Organisation informed his family that the body of the 17-year-old had been held in the organisation’s mortuary for several months before being buried unidentified in Kermanshah’s Bagh-e Ferdows cemetery. At the same time, another citizen sent Soroush Karami’s family a video showing the moment of his death, rejecting reports that he had been arrested and stating that he had been shot dead.”
According to the sources, after the two families learned what had happened, the Kermanshah prosecutor’s office ordered the exhumation of both graves.
Examinations established that the body buried under Heydari’s name in the village of Sarableh, Kermanshah, belonged to Karami.
The discovery of a metal plate in the left leg of the body that had been held unidentified in the mortuary for several months and later buried in Kermanshah’s Behesht-e Mohammadi cemetery confirmed that it belonged to Heydari.
Karami’s body was then handed over to his family.
Heydari’s body was buried in the village of Sarableh in Kermanshah, while Karami’s funeral took place on 29 July in the village of Lanjab in Sonqor County in Kermanshah Province.
According to KHRN’s findings, security forces shot dead hundreds of Kurdish citizens during protests in Kermanshah on 8 and 9 January.
At least two eyewitnesses who visited the Kermanshah Legal Medicine Organisation while seeking information about their missing children previously reported seeing hundreds of bodies there.
They said the bodies of identified individuals were kept in one hall, while unidentified bodies were held in a separate hall, mostly on the floor.
They also reported seeing blood-covered corridors and numerous bodies, most belonging to people under the age of 30.
KHRN has so far verified the identities of 64 citizens killed during the protests of 8 and 9 January in Kermanshah.
