On the 31st of January, four Kurdish Kolbers (back carriers) by the names of Fexri Ehmed, Xebat Ismail, Shaker Saleh and Adem Mustefa from the city of Urmiye, passed away once they get stuck under an avalanche. The incident occurred while they came back to their home city after visiting their relatives in Northern Kurdistan.
According to NNS ROJ, a rescuing team from Şemzinan and Colemerg municipolity as well as 400 civil members managed to find two bodies on the 7th of February after four days of searching. The bodies were 300 hundred meters away from one another. On the 9th of February, the rescuing team managed to find the other two bodies.
According to the Firat News Agency, the four bodies were sent back to Rojhelat (Eastern Kurdistan) and according to reports, on the 10th of February, people of Mergewer from Urmiye participated in mourning and attended the funeral by closing down their shops for three days.
Furthermore, Firat News Agency reported that prior to sending four bodies back to Rojhelat, Esed Canan, a parliament member of Colemerg as well as BDP managements participated in a ceremony in Gewer. After his speech, MP Esed Canan expressed his deepest grief for the tragedy and added, “the people who live in other sides of the border are relatives, however due to strict governmental policies implemented by both sides on issue of border crossing, we are witnessing tragedies of this nature.”
Annually hundreds of defenseless Kurdish Kolbers (back carriers) and tradesmen lose their lives or get wounded for crossing the East-North or East-South Kurdistan borders mainly due to Iranian or Turkish forces shooting at them, land mines, avalanches, cold weather or other natural disasters.
Preparation and translation: Rojhelat.info