Four Iranian Kolbars Shot and Killed in a Fortnight

At least four Iranian kolbars or border couriers have been shot and killed in Iran’s border regions in the past two weeks.

Behzad Rahimi, an MP for Saghez and Baneh in Kurdistan province, revealed the killings during a sitting of the Iranian parliament on Saturday. Border guards, he said, were shooting directly at the victims’ heads and hearts.

On the same day as Rahimi made the disclosure, members of the Border Regiment opened fire on another group of Iranian Kurds carrying goods across the Iran-Iraq border in Baneh.

A married father-of-six, Hamed Aminpour, was killed in the incident. He is understood to have been 48 years old and from Saqez in Kurdistan.

Human rights news agency Hengaw reported that Aminpour had been left “bleeding profusely after being shot several times in the abdomen... His lifeless body was found on the morning of Sunday, July 11.”

The long-documented shooting at kolbars in western Iran by Islamic Republic forces has again ramped up in recent weeks, with devastating consequences.

Also among the dead was father-of-three Abdol Aziz Hajipour, a kolbar from the village of Margour in Urmia, West Azerbaijan. He was shot without warning on Friday, July 9 in the nearby Bonar Valley while carrying several cartons of cigarettes.

Last Tuesday another kolbar, Mohammad Bahrami, was left severely injured after being shot at close range in Saghez. He is said to have been shot in the leg from a distance of just five meters and is currently being treated at Salahuddin Ayoubi Hospital in Baneh.

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