Kurdistan
Search teams and local residents gather at the scene where three children went missing after a vehicle plunged into the river in Gali Ali Beg, Erbil's Soran administration, on May 1, 2026. Photo: Screengrab/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A family outing to Erbil province's Soran area ended in tragedy late Friday when a vehicle carrying five people veered off the road and plunged into the river in the Gali Ali Bag canyon, leaving three children missing and sparking an ongoing search operation.
The incident occurred around 10:00pm near Kani Maran waterfalls on the Hamilton Road, connecting Erbil to the Haji Omaran border crossing with Iran. According to initial accounts, the driver lost control of the vehicle, which then fell into the fast-moving river.
Two passengers - the parents - were rescued from the incident, while three children - Adam Khurshid, 3, Lawand Khurshid, 7, and Mina Issa, 17 - remain missing after sinking with the vehicle.
Such incidents are not uncommon in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region, where narrow roads, steep valleys, and popular tourism spots like Gali Ali Bag often see increased traffic, especially during spring and holidays.
"We saw a light plunging into the river. When we went to look, we found a woman on the riverbank who was safe. My brother, another person, and I went down and pulled the woman up using a belt. We saw the driver of the car emerge from the river further downstream. If it weren't for my brother, the mother of the children would have thrown herself into the river out of grief for her kids,” Jabar Khurshid, an eyewitness, recounted the harrowing scene to Rudaw.
Relatives of the victims said the family had been traveling together on a picnic when the accident occurred.
"The driver is my brother-in-law; we were on a picnic together. On the way back, they were ahead of us. On the road, I saw civil defense vehicles, and when we arrived here, we saw that two of them were safe, but the car and the three children were missing,” Haji Nabi, a family member, sighed.
Car accidents are a common occurrence in the Kurdistan Region. Roads are often riddled with potholes and lack proper illumination, making it difficult to see when driving at night.
However, traffic fatalities and injuries in the Kurdistan Region have plummeted by 60 percent over the last five years, a senior official from the Region’s ministry of interior said in late January, attributing the sharp decline to the implementation of new traffic technologies.
Five civil defense teams and local volunteers have been searching the river for the missing children. However, difficult conditions have hampered efforts.
Faizulla Asaad, a diver with the Soran civil defense team, explained that "the water volume is high and the car is black, which is a problem for visibility. Further downstream, there is a spot 25 meters deep. Divers cannot reach that depth. All of these factors have delayed the operation."
Comments
Rudaw moderates all comments submitted on our website. We welcome comments which are relevant to the article and encourage further discussion about the issues that matter to you. We also welcome constructive criticism about Rudaw.
To be approved for publication, however, your comments must meet our community guidelines.
We will not tolerate the following: profanity, threats, personal attacks, vulgarity, abuse (such as sexism, racism, homophobia or xenophobia), or commercial or personal promotion.
Comments that do not meet our guidelines will be rejected. Comments are not edited – they are either approved or rejected.
Post a comment