“A kolbar from Piranshahr, identified as Hossein Kamalnia, was killed as a result of severe beatings and multiple strikes to his head with the butt of a Kalashnikov rifle by Iranian border guards while working in the border mountains of Piranshahr,” the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said on Tuesday.
The watchdog added that another kolbar, Fardin Ghalash, was “severely injured” from direct gunfire by security forces.
Kamalnia was the sole provider for his family and “financially supported his elderly mother, who suffers from diabetes and has lost her eyesight,” according to Hengaw. He died of his injuries shortly after being transferred to the hospital.
Kolbars are semi-legal porters who transport untaxed goods across the Kurdistan Region-Iran border and sometimes the Iran-Turkey border. They are constantly targeted by Iranian border guards and are sometimes victims of natural disasters.
Many kolbars are pushed into the profession by poverty and a lack of alternative employment, particularly in Iran's Kurdish provinces. Families of kolbars greatly suffer from attacks by Iranian border guards, as the transport of goods is often the household’s primary source of income.
An Iranian border guard commander on Monday accused kolbars of “being used by enemies to bring weapons of war” into the country.
“In one of the western areas of the country, during the inspection of a kolbar, it was found that he had brought 300 pistols into the country with him,” General Qasem Rezaei said in an interview with Fars news, an agency affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
During a rally before his election victory, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian promised the Kurdish people to fix the kolbar issue.
“It is shameful that our young people have to become kolbars to put food on the table,” Pezeshkian, a reformist, said in June during a rally in the Kurdish city of Mahabad.
In its annual report on human rights violations in Iran for 2023, the Paris-based Kurdistan Human Rights Network said that 29 kolbars died last year - at least 19 killed by Iranian border guards.
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