Shifa Gardi

Shifa Gardi (Kurdish:Şîfa Gerdî, Arabic:شفاء كردي)(July 1, 1986 - February 25, 2017) also known as Shifa Zikri Ibrahim, was a Kurdish journalist for the Kurdish Rudaw Media Network in Iraq.  She died in a roadside bomb explosion while reporting on the Iraqi advance into Mosul. When she died, Gardi was speaking to Shiite commander Hashd al-Shaabi beside a huge hole where ISIS militants dumped the bodies of people they killed. Al-Shaabi's feet caught in a wire, which made the bomb explode. Gardi, commander al-Shaabi, and four fighters were killed. Gardi's cameraman Younis Mustafa and seven fighters were wounded.

Ranja Jamal, a Rudaw journalist who is embedded with the Iraqi army was with Gardi when she died.  He said she was looking for the deep hole called "Mosul’s Valley of Death", or Al Khafsa, where ISIS threw hundreds of people. The hole is in a valley south of the Mosul near a village called Al Athba. According to the Islamic State's doctrine, Muslims who oppose the group or fighters who leave the group cannot be buried in Muslim cemeteries. Al Athba is 20 kilometers south of Mosul and five kilometers from the main Baghdad-Mosul road. Gardi had information about the valley but she was not able to find it. On her way back, she met a Popular Mobilization Forces or Al-Hashd Al-Sha'abi group, and they took her to the place.

 Life 

Gardi was born a refugee in 1986 in the town of Urmia Zêwe, Iran. In 2006, she graduated from Computer Technical Institute.  In 2013, she graduated from the media department at Salahaddin University. In 2006, she started her career in media and worked as a teacher. From 2007 to 2010 she worked as a journalist. Gerdi was with the Rûdaw Media Group from its beginning.  At the beginning of the Mosul offensive she started a program titled “Focus Mosul”. Gerdi followed the events of the war by going to the front as a war correspondent. Gerdi once brought a rabbit back to her office, because it was malnourished.  

The President of Kurdistan, Massoud Barzani, sent his condolences.  Mesud Tek, the General Secretary Socialist Party of Kurdistan in Turkey also sent condolences. Marie-Claude Bibeau, the Canadian Minister for international development, Dr. Najmaldin Karim, the governor of Kirkuk, and Falah Mustafa, head of Department of Foreign Relations of Kurdistan Regional Government all expressed their condolences.

 Other websites 
 List of news articles written by Gerdi from Rojname Kurdish News.

 References  

Category:Kurdish writers
Category:Iranian journalists
Category:1986 births
Category:2017 deaths