Kurdish theater actor dies of heart attack

SULAIMANIYA / IraqiNews.com: Kurdish theater actor Ibrahim Jiwar has passed away at Sulaimaniya Hospital as a result of a heart attack, a relative of the late actor said on Saturday. “My uncle’s health deteriorated last midnight and we took him to Sulaimaniya Hospital, where he passed away a short while later as a result of a heart attack, according to doctors,” Ibrahim’s nephew, Karon Jiwar, told IraqiNews.com. “My uncle has suffered from heart disease for two years,” Jiwar noted. Born in 1962, Ibrahim Jiwar is the brother of celebrated filmmaker Othman Jiwar, who also died of heart disease in 1996. Ibrahim graduated from the Fine Arts Academy in Baghdad and headed a theater group that was founded in 2005. Karon said that his uncle will be buried in Sulaimaniya’s Saywan Cemetery, which includes graves of some of the most influential and important figures of Kurdish society. The modern city of Sulaimaniya, 364 kilometers north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, was founded in 1748 by a Kurdish prince known as Ibrahim Pasha Baban who named it for his father Sulaiman Pasha. Since being founded as the capital of a powerful Kurdish principality it has grown to about 1,800,000 people. Sulaimaniya, known as Zamwa prior to its founding, is the cultural center of the Sorani-speaking Kurds and an important economic centre for Iraqi Kurdistan. SS (S) 1