Biography

Omar Shekho Abdulrahman was born in 1927 in the village of Sefte, Blee sub-district, Erbil Governorate. In 1983, he was Anfalized by the Ba'ath regime in the forced settlement of Qushtapa near the city of Erbil.

Struggle Record

On May 22, 1947, he accompanied General Mustafa Barzani towards the Soviet Union and participated in the Battle of Kotol (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. They were guarded by a group of soldiers and were treated like prisoners of war in terms of food, clothing, and movement. Later, by the decision of the Soviet government, they were distributed among the regions of Aghdam, Lachin, Ayulakh, 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 lessons in the Kurdish language by some of their companions who were literate.

After the poor treatment of Barzani's companions by Jafar Baghirov, it was 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 across the collective villages of the Soviet Union and worked on the kolkhoz farms (lands that people rented from the government and later returned the government's share). 

After much effort and the sending of several letters by General Barzani to Stalin, a letter finally reached Stalin in which Barzani described the hardships of his companions. He immediately ordered the formation of a committee to investigate the situation of Barzani's companions, and the committee's final decision was that they should all be gathered in the city of Vrevitsk; therefore, he went to the city of Vrevitsk in the Soviet Union in November 1951.

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

In the year 1961, he joined the Peshmerga Forces of the Aylul Revolution and participated in the battles, and in 1983, he was Anfalized.

Sources:

1- Hamid Gawhari, Barzani Medal the Highest Honor Award, Volume One, (Erbil- Haji Hashim Printing House- 2015).

2- Hamid Gardi, Summary of History, First Edition, (Erbil- Aras Printing and Publishing House- Ministry of Education Printing House- 2004).

3- Shaban Ali Shaban, Some Political Information and History, Third Edition, (Erbil- Rojhalat Printing House- 2013).

4- Omar Farouqi, Sardar Dana: The Life and Struggles of the Late Mullah Mustafa Barzani, Second Edition, (Erbil- Ministry of Education Printing House- 2002).

5- Abdulrahman Mullah Habib Abu Bakr, The Barzan Tribe Between 1931-1991, First Edition, (Erbil- Ministry of Culture Printing House- 2001).

6- Abdullah Ghafoor, Geographical Dictionary of Erbil, (Erbil- Kurdish Academy Publications- Haji Hashim Printing House- 2015).

7- Karwan Muhammad Majid, The Barzanis from Mahabad to the Soviet Union, First Edition, (Sulaymaniyah- Paywand Printing House- 2011).

8- From the Memoirs of Commander Martyr Hasso Mirxan Zhazhoki, 62 Days with Barzani: The Departure of the Barzanis to the Soviet Union, First Edition, (Erbil- Culture Printing House- 1997).

9- Laith Abdul-Muhsin Jawad Al-Zubaidi, The Revolution of July 14, 1958 in Iraq, (Baghdad- Dar Al-Rashid for Publishing- 1979).

10- Masoud Barzani, Barzani and the Kurdish Liberation Movement 1931-1958, (Duhok- Khabat Printing House- 1998). 

11- Najaf Qoli Pessian, From Bloody Mahabad to the Shores of the Aras, Trans. Shawkat Sheikh Yazdin, First Edition, (Pirmam- Golden Jubilee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party- 1996).

12- Archive of the Encyclopedia Committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.