They put him in a car and drove him towards the hospital, but as they got closer, they didn’t have the guts to take him inside, so they abandoned him next to a ditch. He tried to get up, but failed and fell into the ditch. No one knows how long he laid there before two people passing by found him bleeding and carried him to the hospital.
Foad Ghadimi is one of the first victims of the protests against the government murder of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini. He was on streets in Diwandarreh on September 19 when he was shot in the hand and abdomen, dying two days later at Kowsar Hospital in Sanandaj.
A well-informed source told Zamaneh that Foad was hit by Kalashnikov bullets near the IRGC headquarters in Diwandarreh. Several people nearby attempted to save Foad and carry him to the hospital through the alleyways nearby:
“They took him to a women’s beauty parlour where he was for a few minutes… then they tried to take him to the hospital again, but they left him next to a ditch in front of the hospital because they didn’t dare to take him inside.”
It’s unclear how long Foad laid there in the ditch, but after he was discovered, he was handed over to the staff at Imam Khomeini Diwandarreh Hospital, where we underwent surgery for over 6 hours:
“At this hospital, they removed one of his kidneys. He was losing a lot of blood and they said that he would die by the time he reached Sanandaj, but his family insisted that they transfer him to Sanandaj with their own consent and responsibility. Due to this request, the governor asked for a helicopter and Foad was transferred to Sanandaj.”
At 10 o’clock at night, Foad was taken to the operating room at Kowsar Hospital in Sanandaj where he underwent surgery until 12 o’clock. According to Zamaneh’s well-informed source, he did not regain consciousness until 7:00 a.m. the next morning. After he regained consciousness, a number of family members, including his father, brothers, wife, and eldest son, were able to talk to him:
“He told one of his brothers to look after his sons, after which his brother stormed out of the room crying.”
At around 8:00 PM that evening, Foad’s brothers are informed that he lost vital signs and could only be kept alive with a machine. Foad’s family had slept in the hospital’s yard the night before, but on the second night, they had all went to their relatives’ houses, and only two of the brothers and his eldest son were still at the hospital:
“Until 3 o’clock in the morning, every 20 minutes, Foad’s brothers checked with the hospital staff about his condition, to see if he was improving. It was around 2 am when his son fell asleep in the hospital yard. His two brothers, still awake, were trying to cheer each other up. A little later, they also fell asleep, but at around 5 in the morning, one of the brothers went again to ask how Foad was doing, and they told him that he had passed away at 4 o’clock and that his body should be taken to the morgue.”
This source adds that after the death of Foad, one of his brothers had lost his ability to speak from six in the morning til four in the afternoon due to experiencing a nervous shock from the news:
“They attached him to three sedative IVs. Everyone was so worried about him that they forgot about Foad for those moments. They just wanted to make his brother talk but he couldn’t say a single word. The doctors said that he suffered from severe shock.”
Foad Ghadimi passed away on the morning of Wednesday, September 21st with the cause of his death written as “unknown” in his death certificate.
His family has been pressured to sign declarations, for example, to agree to do an interview with state media in which they state that Foad’s death was not due to security forces shooting. The family refuses to accept this.
Under heavy supervision of security forces, Foad’s body was moved to the old cemetery of Diwandarreh around one o’clock in the morning of September 22, where he was finally buried at around 2:30 in the morning:
“Although the security forces warned the family that no one except for the immediate family should attend, around 300 people came to the funeral. The security forces chose a place for burial. One of his brothers protested this decision but several relatives stopped him as they were afraid they would arrest him.”
Born on February 20, 1983, Foad Ghadimi was married and had two sons aged 16 and 9. His eldest son has lived with his uncle in Tehran since eight months ago, and is a member of Esteghlal football club in the youth category. Zamaneh’s well-informed source says tells us about the mental condition of Foad’s younger son after his father’s death:
“The mental state of his sons is not good, his younger son Kavan was very dependent on his father. When they visit his grave, he sleeps next to his father’s grave and is longing for him to come back.”
Fouad Ghadimi had a laundromat in Diwandarreh and everyone in the city knew him. According to our source, he was a very humorous person.
Foad Ghadimi is not the only victim of the protests against the killing of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini in the small town of Diwandarreh. Mohsen Mohammadi is another victim in this city, who was also shot and killed on the same day as Foad Ghadimi.
According to reports by Amnesty International published on September 23rd, over 52 people including children, have been killed by security forces using deadly weapons in the nationwide protests against the murder of Mahsa Amini.
