Roshna Nouri, a 15-year-old girl from the village of Sarhoye in Sanandaj County, was shot dead by her half-brother on Saturday, July 25, 2026.
Her killer fired at her neck and upper body, killing her instantly, according to information received by HANA Human Rights Organization. Roshna and her killer were children of the same father by different mothers.
Initial reports have attributed the killing to “family disputes,” without offering further detail.
Before she became a victim of femicide, Roshna was a 15-year-old child who, under the standards of children’s rights, was entitled to special protection from her family, her community, and public institutions. Her young age, her gender, and her dependence on her family environment severely limited her ability to defend herself, escape a dangerous situation, or reach out to protective mechanisms on her own. Her killing, then, cannot simply be treated as a dispute between family members or the outcome of a private conflict.
The blanket label of “family disputes” should never become a way of obscuring the true nature of this violence or shifting responsibility onto the victim. Used without any examination of a history of threats, violence, control, or power dynamics within the family, it risks concealing the social and gendered roots of the killing. A family cannot exist as territory beyond the reach of the law, and no bond of kinship confers any legitimacy on violence against children.
Roshna Nouri’s killing sits at the intersection of child killing, domestic violence, and gender-based violence. In cases like this, the fact that the victim was a child must sit at the center of the investigation. The responsibility of the institutions involved does not end with prosecuting the perpetrator after the fact; it also includes identifying risk factors, controlling access to firearms, creating safe channels for reporting, and providing immediate support to children at risk of violence.
HANA Human Rights Organization is calling for an independent, transparent investigation into this killing grounded in children’s rights. Alongside establishing the perpetrator’s criminal responsibility, the investigation must examine any prior history of threats or violence, how the perpetrator obtained the weapon, how local institutions may have responded, and whether this killing could have been prevented.
The right to life, physical safety, and effective legal protection belong to every child as a fundamental right. Reducing the killing of a 15-year-old girl to a private dispute only normalizes domestic violence further and prolongs the vulnerability of children for whom home has become not a place of safety, but an environment of threat and violence.