Ghazal Molan, the youngest woman in the Kurdish Peshmerga ranks, has died after being wounded in an alleged Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) drone strike in northern Iraq.
The 19-year-old was injured in the strike and taken to a hospital for treatment. However, there are claims that she faced delays in receiving urgent medical care and was moved between hospitals before being admitted for proper treatment. She later died due to her injuries.
"Comrade Ghazal Mawlan Chaperabad, a Komala Peshmerga fighter who was wounded in a drone attack by the Islamic Republic, lost her life after arriving at the hospital because of the severity of her injuries and joined the caravan of Komala and Kurdistan's martyrs," said the Komala party's central committee secretariat.
Who Was Ghazal Molan?
Ghazal Molan was a 19-year-old Kurdish woman reported to be one of the youngest female fighters in the Kurdish Peshmerga ranks. She was reportedly linked to Kurdish opposition groups operating in northern Iraq and associated with the Komala party.
Ghazal Molan was critically injured on April 14 when a drone strike hit a residential area in Surdash. The strike was carried out by Iranian forces and targeted a place where families linked to the Komala party (a Kurdish opposition group in Iran) were staying.
Her fellow fighters immediately took her to nearby Shorsh Hospital, but due to a lack of adequate medical facilities, she was later transferred to Bakhshin Hospital. However, the hospital denied her treatment as staff were afraid of getting into trouble for treating someone connected to a Kurdish armed group.
So, they took Ghazal to another facility, Faruk Medical Centre, but by the time she reached there, her condition had already become too serious.
"Despite her deteriorating condition and severe bleeding, staff at Bakhshin Hospital resisted repeated pleas to admit her for 45 minutes," said Shakila Mahdipanah, a civil activist and member of Komala Zahmatkeshan in Surdash who accompanied Ghazal, according to Jerusalem Post.
Morgue Refuses To Accept Ghazal's Body
Staff at the morgue allegedly refused to accept her body because she was linked to a leftist Peshmerga group. Since no facility was willing to take her, her friends and comrades prepared her body on their own inside a library in Sulaymaniyah, where her husband was also present and bid farewell.
Even during preparations for her burial, the situation remained tense, as reports claimed that the IRGC launched a missile strike targeting a Peshmerga cemetery earlier that morning. Because of this, her burial had to be conducted quickly in a small, limited ceremony at the Sulaymaniyah cemetery.
"A young woman who chooses to fight her enemy and leave her country represents extraordinary bravery. While her peers elsewhere live in comfort, she sacrificed her life for this struggle," said Kurdish human rights activist Rada Fatehi.
