Translation and subtitles by Sarkawt Mohammed
In the middle of the night, kolbars – grey- and black-market couriers who carry heavy loads on their back to transport goods — cross one of the world's most dangerous borders almost daily to transport foreign commodities from the Kurdistan Region to Iran's stifled markets.
The make their journey in treacherous conditions; through blizzards, and steep, twisting paths.
“We headed to the mountain at 4 am…This morning a man fell down the mountain. It is not known whether he is dead or alive. One says he is alive and another says he is dead. The way is very hard. It’s icy and snowy. Everyone is miserable. Everyone becomes disabled and paralyzed by this work,” one kolbar said.
The people of Iranian Kurdistan, an area known by Kurds as Rojhelat, struggle to make a living in one of the most impoverished parts of the country. Many are university graduates, but high unemployment rates have left them poor and in desperate search of whatever work they can get.
“There are some here who are engineers or doctors who came to work as kolbars. Some friends of mine, are medical graduates yet work here as kolbars,” one kolbar said. “Can’t a big county like this employ some doctors, teachers, and engineers? How does god accept that? Help these people, please – thousands of people who are doctors, BA and MA holders, who come to work in misery as kolbars just to get 1,000 tomans. The people of Mariwan are all jobless.”
Not all of those who carry out this work are young graduates – some are as old as 80.
They arrive where loads containing anything from household appliances to cigarettes and ranging in weight from 25 to 75 kilograms await them. They earn 13,000 tomans per kilogram – equal to just one dollar.
One by one, they pick up the packs and begin the perilous journey back to Rojhelat, where they risk being shot at by Iranian soldiers.
Translation and subtitles by Sarkawt Mohammed
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