Reports indicate an increase in deadly attacks by Iranian regime security forces on Kurdish porters. These porters carry goods from Iraq for a very small amount of money.
In 2023, Iranian regime security forces shot at 507 Kurds carrying goods from Iraq, killing 44 of them.
Since the beginning of 2024, 111 Kurds have been shot at the border for the same reason.
When the border guards see the porters, they shoot at them. Many people are either killed or suffer serious injuries, including spinal cord injuries.
Porters are of various ages, from 13-year-old boys to 75-year-old men. Some of them are highly educated but are forced to take up this job to make a living.
Porters usually receive their wages based on the weight and type of goods they carry.
Items such as tea, electronics, textiles, beauty products, and cigarettes cross the border to be sold immediately.
Porters travel at least 10 kilometers through the mountains carrying at least 10 kilograms of goods. For carrying heavy loads in snow and cold weather, with the risk of being killed, injured, or imprisoned, they receive only $10.
Shooting at porters has been happening for two decades, and poverty is the main factor driving porters to this job.
According to official statistics, since the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, about 20 million landmines were planted in Iranian Kurdistan.
The planting of these mines has made the land unsuitable for agriculture and created deadly conditions for working on the land.
In addition to the difficulty of agricultural work in these areas, there are no investments or development projects in the region.
Human Rights Watch has published a report on the increase in shootings by Iranian security forces at porters.
For this report, 13 Kurdish porters were interviewed who survived the shootings or witnessed them between October 2021 and April 2024.
Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that the border guards and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps carried out these attacks on the porters.
The Iranian regime treats the Baluch fuel carriers on the eastern border similarly to how it treats the porters on the western borders.
Targeting ethnic minorities such as Kurds and Baluchs is a means of controlling them.
