ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A shepherd from the Kurdistan Region was laid to rest Sunday evening, days after he was shot dead in the borderlands between the Region and Iran, family members told Rudaw on Monday. A Tehran consulate staffer in Erbil confirmed that Rebaz Sleman was shot dead by Iranian border guards, though the motive remains unclear.
The family of the 27-year-old Kurdish citizen retrieved their son's body on Sunday afternoon from a hospital in Urmia - the capital of West Azerbaijan province, part of Iran's Kurdish-majority western regions (Rojhelat) - before he was laid to rest later that evening.
Sleman was hit by five bullets to the chest and one to the leg from Iranian border guards while grazing his flock near the remote mountain village of Kelashin, in the extreme northeastern tip of Erbil province some 115 kilometers from the heart of Erbil city.
Iranian claim
The site of Sleman's killing is roughly 90 kilometers from his home district of Kore, in Erbil province's northeastern Shaqlawa district.
Each year, like many shepherd families, he and his family receive permission from Kurdistan Region authorities to travel to the borderlands, where they set up makeshift tents to escape the scorching summer heat and graze their herds on fresh pasture grass.
A staffer at the Iranian Consulate General in Erbil, who spoke to Rudaw English on condition of anonymity, downplayed the incident as an accident triggered by Sleman's sheep crossing into Iranian territory, adding that the shepherd had gone after the sheep and “fired his weapon to redirect his herd.”
“The [Iranian] border guards mistook him for a terrorist and subsequently engaged him,” the staffer added, noting that there was a "small exchange of fire between both sides" and that security forces possess footage of the skirmish.
‘Not an accident’
Both Sleman's family and local sources categorically rejected the official Iranian narrative, affirming that it "was not an accident."
The victim's cousin, Shimal Shino, told Rudaw English that Iranian border guards crossed two to three kilometers into the Kurdistan Region to seize Rebaz's herd, which consists of an estimated 850 to 900 head of livestock and remains confiscated by Iranian authorities, he said.
Shino further rejected claims that his slain cousin had fired shots, noting that the family recovered Sleman's weapon, an AK-47, and verified that all 28 bullets remain intact in the magazine - proving no shots were fired from it.
Of note, shepherds and residents in border areas traditionally carry weapons to protect their flocks from wild animals.
Rebaz's father, Sleman Salih, also recounted that Iranian border guards turned his eldest son back at gunpoint when he went to search for his brother.
"They told my eldest son that Rebaz's flock entered our [Iranian] territory," Salih told Rudaw's Payam Sarbast. When asked about the slain shepherd, the border guards knew him by name and asked the son to identify his connection to Rebaz, to which he responded, "He is my brother."
A local official from the area where Sleman was killed spoke to Rudaw on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter and corroborated the family's account, noting that the slain shepherd "did not cross past Iranian border guard posts" and instead remained in Kurdistan Region territory.
Meanwhile, the victim's uncle, Shino Salih, said an autopsy was performed on his nephew's body at Urmia hospital without the family's consent, suggesting that bullet fragments had been removed to conceal the identity of the perpetrators
A mother's plea
Nazira Mohammed strongly rejected the Iranian Consulate staffer's claim that her 27-year-old son had "engaged the Iranian guards in a gunfight."
"He was a shepherd attending to his livestock, and they killed him," the bereaved mother said, adding, "And now they have the audacity to claim that Rebaz opened fire on them!”
Mohammed urged the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to "intervene and recover my son's right. They should not abandon us, and should also bring our livestock back to us."
"If they remain silent about the Iranian border guards' actions this time, they will do worse next time," she said.
On its part, the Independent Human Rights Commission of the Kurdistan Region (IHRCKR), an affiliate of the KRG, slammed the incident as a "blatant assault on the lives of citizens" and "a clear violation of the territorial sovereignty" of the Kurdistan Region.
The Commission called for "an immediate, transparent international investigation" into the incident."
