Thousands honor Mustafa Barzani on the anniversary of his death

Every year on this day, crowds gather in Barzan, where Barzani is buried, as well as in other cities in the Kurdistan Region.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan24) - Thousands of people traveled on Thursday to the town of Barzan to honor Kurdish revolutionary leader Mustafa Barzani on the anniversary of his death.

Barzani, also known as Mulla Mustafa, died on March 1, 1979, in Washington DC during surgery for lung cancer. Every year on this day, crowds gather in Barzan, in Erbil province, where Barzani is buried, as well as in other cities in the Kurdistan Region.

As many as fifteen thousand visitors are expected to make the journey by the end of the day.

Among those present to pay homage by late morning were religious leaders representing the Muslim, Christian, and Yezidi faiths, who made speeches extolling Barzani and the coexistence of various sects within the Kurdistan Region.

Barzani was born on March 14, 1903 in Barzan, then part of the Ottoman Empire. When Barzani was only five years old, he was imprisoned along with his family after an insurrection against the empire was led by his tribe.

As a young man, he joined other tribal fighters in a revolt against British colonial forces in Iraq. Later, he joined the Kurdish liberation movement against the Iraqi and Iranian governments.

On June 12, 1943, Barzani alongside with thousands of Peshmerga forces went to Iranian Kurdistan (Rojhelat) to support the establishment of the first Kurdistan Republic in Mahabad, declared by Qazi Muhammed in 1945. Barzani was the chief commander of the Republic army.

Following the collapse of the Republic of Mahabad in 1946, Mustafa Barzani and nearly 500 of his Peshmerga companions moved to the then Soviet Union. He returned home following the coup in Iraq in 1958.

In 1961, after negotiations failed with Baghdad, Barzani led an armed struggle known as the Aylul Revolution against Iraqi forces that resulted in the March 11 Agreement in 1970, between Iraq and Kurdish representatives.

The Kurdish leader passed away on March 1, 1979, at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington DC.