Shifa Gardi was born in Kurdistan in 1986. Her family had suffered years of oppression under the former Iraqi regime. They lived a life of hardship and often as refugees.
Though she came from one of the most beautiful parts of a Kurdistan, with stunning nature and heavenly peace, Shifa saw little of the environment her family had lived for generations.
War forced her family as did many others from one place to another.
Shifa attended elementary school in the town of Basrma near Erbil and finished high school in Harir where she was involved in student activities and became a member of the Student Union.
She graduated from the Department of Computer Science at the Erbil Technical Institute in 2006.
After graduation she found a job as a news anchor at the newly-established Zagros TV.
Her passion for journalism work took her to wherever she could make a difference.
In 2009 as Iraqi Kurdistan was preparing for general elections she joined the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and with a team of young reporters like herself published a daily newspaper on the elections.
Three years later, in 2012 a new chapter in Shifa’s life began. Rudaw Media Network was founded as a major news organization with plans for a television channel.
Shifa was one of the first journalists to join the network and she arrived with unbridled ambition.
Along with her colleagues she was trained by professional broadcast journalists and she excelled from the very first day.
Less than a year later and on the launch day, Shifa became the face of Rudaw TV and presented the first news bulletin in May 2013.
Working in the newsroom nurtured Shifa’s love for media work. She pursued journalism studies and in 2014 received a Bachelor’s degree in journalism from Salahaddin University in Erbil.
Shifa had become a household name for millions of Kurds at home and abroad. She presented news bulletins and various TV shows and she always sat in for colleagues who needed her help.
She covered different aspects of life. Her topics and her guests reflected the political, cultural, economic and social aspects of the day.
Shifa was devoted to her work. She was courteous to friends and strangers alike. And in her line of work she was driven by an immense respect for quality of work, objectivity and time. She was also a natural born leader.
Recognizing her leadership skills Rudaw Television promoted her to run the output department. She was put in charge of all content that aired on the radio and television. She took on this daunting task and huge responsibility with vigor.
By the second half of 2016 a massive military operation by Iraqi, Kurdish and allied forces against ISIS in Mosul, dominated the world news.
A humanitarian disaster was looming as Iraq’s second largest city came under attack from all sides. Shifa Gardi was long prepared for this day. She embarked on covering the war and its aftermath and she designed her own special program Focus Mosul.
Focus Mosul combined field reporting with in-house interviews with men in uniform, victims and eyewitnesses. Attention to detail, research and her passion for the job made her show a big hit.
Shifa never lost sight of the human side of this devastating war. She walked side by side with soldiers into the battlefield. And she stood on the road to meet women and children who fled the violence under fire.
As more territories were liberated from the Islamic State, Shifa made longer journeys to uncover the human tragedy that had befallen this ancient city.
A mass-grave in the outskirts of Mosul was of particular interest to her. Khasfa was a deep natural pit which ISIS had turned into a mass-grave for hundreds of people killed in cold blood.
On February 25, 2017, Shifa was led by a group of Iraqi fighters to the site. She had finally found the story she had been pursing for days. But no sooner had the cameras started rolling than one of the fighters stepped on an ISIS roadside bomb. Shifa Gardi’s time ended there. She died instantly in the explosion.
The death of Shifa broke the heart of a nation and the community of journalists lost one of their bravest members.