This page is dedicated to 21 people whose names appear in our list with the city of Koy Sanjaq. Koy Sanjaq, which the sources also call Koya Sanjaq or Koya, is a city outside Iran, in the province of Erbil in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. For this reason no Iranian province is recorded for these names in our data. All of these 21 people are counted among those who were assassinated outside Iran, and the source introduces those remembered on this page as members or cadres of the Kurdistan Democratic Party who lived or worked at this party's headquarters in Koya.
Two days
The names from Koy Sanjaq go back to only two days. 6 names are from 30 Azar 1395, the night of Yalda. According to the source, on that night a bomb exploded in the party's central building, known as the “Qala” (fortress), where the Yalda celebration was being held. 15 names are from 17 Shahrivar 1397. According to the source, on that day the meeting place of the party's central committee and the grounds of its training centre were the target of a missile attack by the IRGC.
The ages on this page range from 17 to 67 years, and the median is 44 years. 1 person was under 18 and 3 people were women. For all 21 people a description of life is available, and all these names come from one source: the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center.
The night of Yalda 1395
Abubakr Abbasnia, 37 years old, had left school in middle school because of poverty and worked as a street vendor and construction labourer. His friends called him “Arsalan” because of his daring. The source says about him: “He was a kind, cheerful, sociable and well-loved person and also had a good voice.” According to the source, after the first explosion he went to the site together with others, and the second bomb was detonated remotely. Ali Esmail Ghavitasi, 46 years old, who from 1389 to 1395 was in charge of the party's training centre and a history teacher, was killed on the same night. Both were buried in the city of Koya, 500 metres from the Qala.
17 Shahrivar 1397
Nasrin Haddad, 58 years old, who had graduated from the Mahabad teacher training college in the spring of 1358 and until the year 1376 was the head of a school in the Koya camp, and her husband Mohammad Hassanpour, 67 years old, who before and after 1357 was an employee of the post and telegraph office in Sardasht, were killed together. One of their children has said: “My sister and I lost both pillars of our lives on one day in such a terrible incident.”
Soheila Ghaderi, 46 years old, mother of 2 children, had been a news presenter on the party's television since 1387 and has two books of poetry in the Kurdish language. Karim (Mam Shirko) Rasoulzadeh, 56 years old, was captain of the Sardasht football team in the fifties (Iranian calendar). His child has said: “My father was the pillar of the family, and his empty place will never be filled.”
Younger people too are among those killed that day. Pishva Azizpour (Seyed Omar), 20 years old, had lost his father at 9 months old and, because of his family's poverty, had left school in the second year of high school. Mokhtar Ghaderpour, 33 years old, who had farmed after leaving school, according to the source was to marry in the autumn of that same year. Havari Karsaz, 34 years old, who had been a mechanic's apprentice in Oshnavieh, dreamed of one day seeing his family again. Rahman Pirouti, 66 years old, whom the source regards as a reader and an advocate of civic activity and of keeping away from violence, Farough Hassankhayyat, 33 years old, an agriculture graduate who was interested in Kurdish history, and Mansour Akbarpour, 32 years old, a dental technician from Mahabad, also lost their lives on the same day.
After death
According to the source, the families of several of those killed were summoned or threatened in Iran by intelligence bodies in Baneh, Saqqez and Piranshahr and were not allowed to hold official memorial ceremonies.
About this list
These 21 names are not all of those who were killed in Koy Sanjaq; the real number of the Javid-Nam (“everlasting names”), those who lost their lives, on these two days in Koya is higher, and we record only a name for which we have a source. All these names rest only on the reports of one source and may contain errors in age or in the spelling of a name. If you knew one of those killed in Koya, send us your memory or correction.