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Kurdistan
Police vehicles in front of the houses where the incident happened on July 29, 2023. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A man in Erbil province’s Soran is accused of killing his two wives and turning himself in to police. A police investigation is ongoing.
According to family members who spoke to Rudaw, the accused, who they said was a member of the Peshmerga forces, killed his two wives in their respective homes on Saturday morning. His brothers said he has been suffering psychologically for five years after a problem at work.
“In 2018, an incident happened where he injured another man. It affected his mental health,” Barzan Salim, a brother of the accused, told Rudaw’s Andam Jabbar. “His condition worsened and he barred himself inside his house for a year with his wives and children and he refused to come out,” he added.
The accused was laid off from his job two years ago, after 25 years of service.
“He told us that he wanted to get back to his job,” said the accused’s oldest brother Nihad Salim, adding that the family warned the authorities about the seriousness of the situation, but the police did nothing.
“We could not go to him and help him, because he was shooting at us,” he continued, saying that the accused blamed his family for his troubles.
The victims were killed in their own homes, which are next door to each other. The accused has seven children, aged between one year and 14. Some of the children were at home sleeping when the murders took place.
Soran’s police have not yet publicly commented on the investigation but are expected to hold a press conference.
Gender-based violence is a serious problem in the Kurdistan Region, including sexual assault, so-called honor killings, child marriages, and female genital mutilation. At least 44 women were killed in the Kurdistan Region in 2022, according to statistics from the government’s Directorate of Combatting Violence against Women, almost double the figure from 2021 when 24 women were killed.
Femicides in the Region are often linked with the terms “social dispute” and “honor killings” used to justify the murders.
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