Biography

Khano Juj Khan was born in 1927 in the village of Zhazhuk, affiliated with the Goratu sub-district in the Mergasor district of Erbil province. After the collapse of the first Barzan revolution, when Sheikh Ahmed Barzani and a large number of Barzani families took refuge in northern Kurdistan, he also became a refugee in the Republic of Turkey with his family on June 21, 1932. However, after the Turkish authorities handed Sheikh Ahmed Barzani over to the Iraq government in 1933, their family, like all the families who had fled to northern Kurdistan with Sheikh Ahmed, returned to southern Kurdistan. He studied in the Soviet Union and received a bachelor's degree in agriculture from the University of Tashkent. It was there, in the Year 1955, that he married Alfia Ismailovna Zalafia. After returning to Kurdistan in 1959, he was employed as an official in the Erbil Agriculture Department. He knew Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, and Russian. He passed away on June 25, 2019, in a hospital in the Country of Turkey, and was buried in the Zhazhuk cemetery on June 26, 2019.

Struggle Record

In 1943, he joined the ranks of the Second Barzan Revolution. On October 12 of the same year, he participated in the capture of the Kherazok police station. On August 19, 1945, by order of the Iraqi Military Tribunal, all his movable and immovable property was seized. On September 5, 1945, he participated in the capture of the Meydan Morik police station. On October 11, following the collapse of the Second Barzan Revolution, he headed to eastern Kurdistan with his family.

 On March 31, 1946, he served as a Peshmerga in the Barzan force affiliated with the army of the Republic of Kurdistan. After the collapse of the Republic of Kurdistan, he participated in the Battle of Nelos on March 3, 1947, and in the battles of Naghadeh and Oshnavieh on March 19. He was among the Peshmerga who returned to the Shirwan and Mizuri region through (Khwakurk and the Barazgir plain) via the soil of northern Kurdistan on April 19, 1947.

After their return, General Mustafa Barzani held a meeting with his companions on May 6, 1947, in the village of Argosh and gave them the choice to stay or head toward the Soviet Union. There, all his companions decided to continue and head toward the Soviet Union. On May 23, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani toward the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of Qotur and the Battle of the Maku Bridge. After much hardship and fatigue, on June 18, 1947, he crossed the Aras River, which is located on the border between Iran and the Soviet Union, into the Soviet Union.

After arriving in the Soviet Union, on June 19, 1947, he and all his companions were placed in the city of Nakhchivan in the Republic of Azerbaijan for forty days in an open-air compound surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by a group of Military personnel, and were treated like prisoners of war in terms of food, clothing, and movement. Later, by decision of the Soviet government, they were distributed among the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Ayolakh, and Kalbajar in the Republic of Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1947, they were moved to a military camp on the Caspian Sea in Baku, the capital of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and on the 23rd of the same month, they were given military uniforms and, under the supervision of the officers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, were given eight hours of military training daily. At the same time, for four hours a day, they were taught the Kurdish language by some of their companions who were literate.

After Jafar Baghirov's poor treatment of his companions, Barzani decided to move the military camp on August 29, 1948, from the Republic of Azerbaijan to the Charchuk compound near Tashkent, the capital of the Republic of Uzbekistan, where they continued their military training.

In March 1949, he and his companions were distributed in groups and squads by train among the collective villages of the Soviet Union and worked on the collective farms (the lands that people rented from the government and later gave the government's share back).

After much effort and sending several letters by General Barzani to Stalin, a letter finally reached Stalin in which Barzani described the hardships of his companions, and he immediately decided to form a committee to investigate the Situation of Barzani's companions. Eventually, the committee's decision was for them all to be gathered in the city of Vrevsky, so he went to the city of Vrevsky in the Soviet Union in November 1951.

After the July 14, 1958 revolution in Iraq and the return of General Mustafa Barzani, on February 25, 1959, and according to both the third and seventh articles and paragraph (a) of the tenth article and the implementation of article (11) based on the amended Law No. 19 of 1959, he and his companions were granted a general amnesty.

In 1958, the Republic of Iraq was established under the presidency of Abdul Karim Qasim. He returned to Kurdistan with his companions on April 16, 1959, via the ship Gruzia through the port of Basra in the south of the Republic of Iraq. 

 In 1961, he participated in the Aylul Revolution. In 1963, he participated in the battles of the Mizurian region. After the March 11, 1970 agreement, he became a border guard in the Mergasor region. In 1975, after the collapse of the Aylul Revolution, he remained in the Mergasor region. In 1988, during the chemical bombardment of the Badinan region, he headed to the Bradost mountain, and after a month passed, when the Iraq government announced a general amnesty, he returned to the village of Zhazhuk. In 1991, he was displaced by the Iraq government to the Shakholan complex and settled there, and after the spring uprising of 1991, he returned to his own village. He participated in the Battle of Mazne and was wounded in this battle. On December 16, 2010, at the Thirteenth Congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party , because of his struggle and resistance in the Second Barzan Revolution, the Republic of Kurdistan, the path toward the Soviet Union, and the Aylul Revolution , by President Masoud Barzani , he was awarded the Barzani the Immortal Medal.

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