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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The wife and children of late Rudaw reporter Halkawt Aziz on Tuesday inaugurated a new secondary school named in his honor in Kirkuk province, nearly four months after he was killed in a traffic accident in southern Iraq.
The school, located in the Family Land residential project in the northern province, was named after Aziz on the orders of Kirkuk Deputy Governor Rebwar Taha, who said he was pleased that the promise he made following the journalist's tragic death “has been fulfilled today.”
The new building, constructed by the project's investors, has 12 classrooms and will initially operate as a girls' secondary school.
Taha thanked the Kirkuk Investment Directorate for completing the project and pledged that the school would receive whatever support it needs. “We will not allow Halkawt Aziz School to be in need of anything,” he said.
Halkawt Aziz was Rudaw's Baghdad bureau chief. He passed away on June 8 from injuries sustained in a tragic car accident on the road between the Iraqi capital and the southern Basra province.
The late journalist's father, Aziz Mohammed, attended the opening along with relatives and friends. He said the inauguration of a school in his son's home province of Kirkuk showed that “he was a truly fine young man, which is why people named the school after him.”
For Halkawt's wife, Begard Mohammed Nuri, the school will keep her husband's name alive in Kirkuk, she said. “It will ensure that future generations in the city of Kirkuk will know who Halkawt Aziz was.”
The school has been assigned a full teaching and administrative staff, and around 100 students have enrolled for classes starting next week. It will initially teach in Arabic, with a Kurdish-language shift planned, and will offer only seventh- and eighth-grade classes this year.
“God willing, the Halkawt Aziz School will not only be a building, but a new window to learning and knowledge,” said principal Tania Barzan, affirming that the facility “will bring forth goodness and happiness to us, to all the students and to their families.”
Halkawt Aziz, whose family is originally from Kirkuk, was born in 1989 in Erbil, where they had been displaced. He worked in media for nearly 16 years, joining Rudaw in 2015, and was known for his coverage of major events, including the 2018 Basra protests and the 2019 discovery of the remains of Anfal victims in southern Iraq.
