Colleagues of late American professor fulfill will, bury him in Kurdistan

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – An American University Lecturer in the Kurdistan Region was buried on Wednesday in the Erbil province’s town of Soran in accordance with his will after he passed away in his home late-August of a reported heart attack.

Nicholas Rion Lonnie was born in 1958 in the State of Illinois and began working in Soran University in 2016, a year after he arrived in the Kurdistan Region. As a lecturer in the English Department, he held two masters degrees: one in Ancient History and another in Teaching English.

When he passed away on Aug. 31, Doctor Nahro Zagros, deputy director of Soran University, and a close friend of Lonnie’s gave him high praise, telling Kurdistan 24 “he was a wonderful person; he was very dedicated to his work.”

Zagros added that Lonnie “loved the Kurds very much.”

Zagros had explained that Lonnie had asked his friends to be buried in Soran if he ever died in Kurdistan. The late teacher’s family recently approved the burial in his second hometown.

Today, officials from the university conducted the burial ceremony in one of the sites in Soran dedicated to Christians.

Editing by Nadia Riva