ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Head of the Yezidi community Mir Tahsin has died in Germany at the age of 86.
Mir Tahsin was hospitalized for an illness last week and his relatives announced on Monday that he had passed away in a Hanover hospital.
Tahsin Saeed Beg Ali Beg Hussein Beg known as Mir (Chief) Tahseen was chosen chief of the Yezidi community at the age of 11.
“With a heavy heart we announce the death of Yazidis’ Mir Tahsin Saeed Ali at the KRH Slewa Hospital in the German city of Hanover. He had fallen ill for a long time,” Khairi Bozani, director of Yazidi affairs at the KRG ministry of religious affairs, said on Monday.
He was born on August 15, 1933 in Ba'adra, near Shekhan, Duhok.
Mir Tahsin joined the Kurdish Aylul Revolution against Iraqi government in 1970. He had already experienced imprisonment under the Iraqi regime a decade earlier.
Mir Tahsin migrated to the UK in 1975 and returned to Iraq in 1981. He survived two attempts on his life in 1992 and 2003.
He is survived by eight sons and three daughters.