Kufan Nuri Taher was "brutally" beaten by her brother, 45, and set on fire in central Duhok, the city's police directorate reported on Tuesday, adding that the suspect fled the house but was arrested four hours later in Chamanke district.
Authorities at the time said that about 80 percent of the woman’s body had been burned and that she was under intensive care.
She succumbed to her wounds on Sunday morning.
The Kurdistan Region suffers from high rates of gender-based violence, including sexual violence, domestic violence, so-called honor violence, child marriages, and female genital mutilation.
At least 30 women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2023, according to the Region’s Combatting Violence against Women Directorate. In 2022, the Region reported its highest femicide rate in years, with at least 44 women killed.
In February 2022, a 21-year-old mother of two was burnt alive by her husband and died after spending five days in the hospital with serious burns. The husband was sentenced to death for her murder in February 2024.
Femicides in the Region are often linked with the terms “social dispute” and “honor killings,” that perpetrators use to justify murdering their mothers, sisters, daughters, or wives.
