One of the sad new words in Farsi/Persian language since the #IRI in #Iran is the word #Koulbar(کولبر) that literally means "Person who carries things on his/her shoulders".
It refers to men (mostly) but also women who smuggle items from Iraq and Turkey and back over the #Zagros mountains on their back. Anything from cigarettes, to medicine, fuel up to refrigerators, stoves, ovens and even washing machines.
it is an extremely hard and dangerous job as both Iran, #Turkey and #Iraq seems to go after these people and try to catch them or in many cases even shoot them from distance.
The smuggling of items is nothing new, but it was done with donkeys and mules in the old days an later replaced with trucks and 4WDs, but since the Iraq/Iran war in the 80s, the borders have been heavily mined, or controlled.
Things get extremely dangerous during winter where high mountains of Zagros can create shocking changes in temperature going from +15 down to -20 in the matter of hours, with heavy winds and snow on top of it.
Hiva Ekhtialroldini, 16 year old Koulbar from the Kurdish city of #Baneh is the latest young man who died when coming back from Iraqi #Kurdistan.
