At Least 17 Porters Wounded by Direct Fire from Border Guards in One Week
At least 10 porters were wounded on Sunday evening, April 18, by direct fire from border guards at the Nowsud border in Kermanshah.
With this, the number of porters wounded by direct fire from border guards at the Nowsud border over the past week has reached at least 17 people.
The human rights website Hengaw, which publishes news from Kurdish regions, announced the news and stated that these porters were targeted with shotguns and fired upon in the head, back, and arms, and some of them were transferred to hospitals after their injuries.
According to the news website “Kurdpa,” border guards opened fire on these porters without prior warning.
The Kurdistan Human Rights Network also reported in recent days that 6 porters were wounded on April 13 and 14 by direct fire from border guards at the Nowsud border.
The Hengaw human rights organization had previously announced in early December 2021 that at least 52 Kurdish porters were killed in Iran in 2021, four of whom were under 18 years old.
According to this report, during this period, 163 porters were wounded by gunfire from border guards, and of the total 140 shootings that resulted in the death or killing of porters, 134 were carried out by Iranian armed forces and 6 were carried out by armed forces of Turkey and Iraq.
The situation of porters has become a human rights crisis in recent years. Islamic Republic officials consider porterage a form of smuggling, but many critics and activists, pointing to poverty, widespread unemployment, and existing inequalities, describe porterage as the only way for certain citizens to “survive.”
A plan to regulate porterage was announced as received by parliament in late April of last year, but after one year has passed, it has still not been approved.
Shahryar Haidari, a member of the National Security Commission, promised in mid-December 2021 without specifying an exact timeline that “the plan to regulate the livelihood activities of border residents will be approved by parliament soon.”
Source: Radio Farda
