Obaid Moloudi (nom de guerre: Xebat Aso), son of Hajar and Hossein, a resident of Javanrood city in Kermanshah province, is the newest Iranian member of the PKK / PJAK to die in the group’s war with the Turkish army. The PKK claimed in a statement that Obaid – among several others of its armed forces – has been killed by Turkish chemical attacks in the Avashin region on May 3, 2021. In an exclusive interview with Iranian Kurdistan Human Rights Watch, the Moloudi family confirmed that their son had been deceived by the PKK / PJAK about four years and seven months ago under the pretext of working in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and had been transferred to the group’s headquarters in the region. According to Obaid’s brother, he was accepted to the university in the field of chemical engineering; But his transfer to the mountains had dashed the family’s aspirations. His body is still missing, and the PKK claims that Turkey has removed the bodies of its members.
Obaid Moloudi
“I went to Qandil several times to find my child back,” Obaid’s mother told the Iranian Kurdistan Human Rights Watch. “But they did not allow me to meet him. Now we do not even know how, why and by what group Obaid was killed and who has his body. Why should my son be killed on the borders of Turkey? During my frequent visits to the climate, the PKK / PJAK forces told me how many sons do you have, let Obaid be sacrificed in Kurdistan!! Why should my child be sacrificed by armed groups? I often spent nights in the mosques of deserted and lonely villages and slept in tents to search the Iraqi mountains, but I never succeeded to see my son.” “I was even threatened as to why I had gone there.”
Information about the death of Obaid
“We were at home when a woman named Heval Beritan informed us by phone that Obaid had been killed in a chemical weapons operation on the Turkish border, along with six others, and sent us video and photos via a social media app,” Obaid’s mother told our correspondent. “I should have seen these pictures of my child 5 years ago, when I requested to see him; Not when I heard that he had been killed. They told us they buried his body; But later they wrote on their website that Turkey also took the body. My daughter, who lives in Chamchamal, was also told that it was not possible to move the body due to the intensity of the fighting and the shelling. All this false information was given to us while from the first day of our pursuit, they had even completely denied the presence of Obaid at their headquarters and the camps we visited. “With this situation in mind, how should we trust PJAK’s new statements?”
Obaid; second from right, ‘Xebat Aso’.
Trying to get accurate information
Obaid’s mother seriously told our reporter that she would not allow her son’s blood to be trampled and that she was seeking accurate information about how her child was killed and where he was buried.
Father’s request to the Iranian government
Obaid’s father, who is a gardener, called on the Iranian government to take serious steps to determine the fate of his son. He said the family’s hopes and lives have been destroyed. “Several times during the Qandil Nowruz ceremony, I went to Qandil together with his mother. But we only saw and heard false and ridiculous information. PKK forces did not provide accurate information even to Obaid’s sister, who lives in the region. The only photos and videos we have seen of Obaid are related to scenes after his death. We are really suspicious of this kind of information about our child being killed. Once they said he was buried, and once they said ‘we could not bury them because of the war’.
“We urge the government to at least request and transfer his body to Iran.”
Obaid Moloudi in one of the pictures the family received.
It is a pity that the Euphrates News Agency, which had previously announced the death of other Iranian members with a delay of several years, announced that the bodies of these latest victims had been transferred to an unknown location by the Turkish army, destroying their families’ hopes for a proper burial.
Turkey’s Chemical Weapons
Meanwhile, footage and pictures have been leaked by PKK officials to the UK’s Morning Star.
Footage sent exclusively to the Morning Star purported to show the aftermath of a chemical attack, which officials said took place in the Avashin region of the mountainous Duhok province on May 3.
It appears to show the dead body of a guerilla fighter from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) being pulled out of an underground tunnel by Turkish soldiers.
Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) spokesman Zagros Hiwa told the Morning Star: “You can see that the martyr has no wounds on his body. It is clear that this is the result of a chemical attack by Turkish forces.”
He explained that the footage was circulating on Turkish fascists’ WhatsApp groups, but had not appeared in the Turkish media “as it would prove that they are celebrating the use of chemical weapons.”
PKK military commander-in-chief Murat Karayilan accused the Turkish state of using poison gas when its operations were failing to advance as they hoped.
“It does not use it over a wide area, but in a very targeted manner. So, for example, in a particular area, from which it then stays away for a few days,” he said, explaining that the Turkish army had removed the dead bodies of the PKK fighters.
Turkey is a signatory to the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a 1997 treaty which “prohibits the large-scale use, development, production, stockpiling and transfer of chemical weapons and their precursors, except for very limited purposes.”
