Update on three Iranian heritage workers shot and seriously injured by antiquities smugglers in the Kurdistan province of Iran

Image Credit: ISNA News

NOTE:  This article has been updated January 5, 2017 as more information has been reported.

In an interview with Iran news reporters the Director General of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization of the Kurdistan province in Iran, Seyed Mohsen Alavi, has stated that a primary suspect in the attack on three cultural heritage protection unit officers has been arrested.  He further indicated that following the culprit's interrogation, other arrests were expected to follow shortly. Those believed to have been involved in the incident have now been formally indicted by Iranian authorities.

The suspects in this case were conducting illegal excavations in a remote area searching for ancient objects.

Image Credit: ISNA News

According to Azad News Agency, on Monday, January 3, 2017 two site workers and one heritage bureau activist from the town of Baneh were ambushed by the looters shortly after they arrived at a location in rural Baneh County along Iran's western border with Iraq. Responding to citizen reports of illicit excavations near the village of Mirabad and Shrg·h, the heritage personnel came across tools used by the looters to carry out illegal digging, as well as a large excavated looting pit, estimated to be approximately twelve meters deep.

Image Credit IRIB News

Image Credit IRIB News

Seven armed men reportedly opened fire on the heritage workers using both pistols and shotguns and in the onslaught the three workers were struck by projectiles and a vehicle was also overturned and damaged.

Image Credit: Khabarduni News

One veteran 42 year old cultural heritage protection unit officer remains in the hospital having sustained a penetrating wound to the head. Another suffered shotgun pellet wounds to his neck and left shoulder. Another is reported to have suffered a seriously hand injury.

Image Credit: ISNA News

The area where the looters were working lies along the border between the Kurdistan province in Iran and Eastern Iraq, a lengthy remote area which stretches 230 kilometres along the territorial divide between the two countries. Because the city of Baneh sits inside this scarcely populated zone, it has long struggled with underdevelopment and high unemployment, both key contributors to the zone's reputation as an area where illegal transportation, goods smuggling and illicit drugs pass on their way to or from porous country borders which are difficult to secure.

Kulbar — a colloquial word for the region's border couriers or load carriers, smuggle untaxed and prohibited goods between Iraq and Iran frequently via the Kurdistan province. Small time smugglers move food, electronics, or other hard-to-find necessities.  Bolder traffickers move riskier merchandise: satellite dishes, illegal drugs, cigarettes and alcohol.  Sometimes violent confrontations occur between the kulbar and Border authorities but the payoff to traffickers and rampant poverty create a recipe for continued illicit activity, making it easy enough for heritage looters to use the already well-established smuggling conduit to transport looted antiquities out of the region.

Speaking to Iranian journalists during a press briefing the Director General of Cultural Heritage in Baneh in Kurdistan said that while violent incidents such as the one that occurred this week are unusual, he worries that there is an increased likelihood for events such as this to reoccur. Stating his concerns he said "Unfortunately, illegal excavations and smuggling have increased everywhere in the country and also [our] protection unit in the city does not have weapons. The poor empty-handed are sent out to these kind of locations more frequently and chances are, something like this could be repeated."

By: Lynda Albertson