Kolbar and Young Father Shot Dead on Iran-Iraq Border

A young kolbar or border courier has been killed by security forces while crossing between Iran and Iraq, the human rights observatory Hengaw reports.

Ribwvr Rashidi, 30, was reportedly killed in the early hours of Friday morning after being directly shot at by officers at the Haftash base, by the Barvish Kani border crossing.

Rashidi was from one of the villages on the outskirts of Baneh, a city in Iran’s Kurdistan province. He was a father-of-two whose widow is also pregnant.

Iranian and Kurdish human rights organizations report at least seven kolbars have been killed by Iranian armed forces in the last five months. One of them, a 29-year-old named Hajar Faraji, was shot dead in the Baneh area as recently as August 14.