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Iranwire – Iranian Revolutionary Guards have shot dead a transborder porter, or kolbar, in the western province of Kurdistan, according to Kurdish human rights activists.
The man, identified as Ali Qaderi from Baneh, was fatally shot without prior warning at the Asnawa crossing on the border with Iraq.
Qaderi, a 52-year-old father of four, was shot in the heart, and his body was subsequently transported to the nearby town of Marivan by the security forces.
The incident brings the total number of kolbars killed by Iranian forces over the past three weeks to at least four.
The kolbars are porters who haul goods on their backs across the borders of Iran and over long distances, mostly in the impoverished, mountainous Kurdish areas adjacent to Iraq, to make a living.
The Iranian authorities label kolbars as “smugglers,” but human rights organizations maintain that their activity is a form of survival for many men living in impoverished border regions where economic opportunities are scarce.
From 2012 to the end of 2021, at least 547 kolbars died and more than 1,601 were injured in Kermanshah, West Azerbaijan and Kurdistan provinces, according to the Kolbar News website.
