Girl’s body found in Zalm stream after nine-day search

HALABJA — The body of a 12-year-old girl from Karbala who disappeared in the waters of the Zalm stream near Ahmad Awa Waterfall was found Wednesday, nine days after an extensive search by civil defense teams and volunteers, officials said.

“The body of the 12-year-old girl who drowned at the source of the Zalm waterway has been found today,” Abidin Abdulrahman, director of Halabja Civil Defense, told 964media.

The girl went missing on the evening of June 9 while visiting the area with her family. According to her mother, she approached the water around 5 p.m. to take photographs and did not return.

Civil defense teams and local residents conducted continuous search operations over the following nine days, employing multiple methods in an effort to locate her body. Despite the sustained efforts, the search had not yielded results until Thursday morning.

Earlier Thursday, with hopes of an immediate recovery fading, Halabja Civil Defense launched what officials described as a long-term “Plan B” operation and asked residents to suspend their volunteer search efforts. Hours later, the girl’s body was recovered.

Abdulrahman said the body was found nearly 300 meters downstream from the location where the girl had entered the water.

Before the discovery, Abdulrahman said the new search strategy would be prolonged and that civil defense teams would continue monitoring the waterway. “The plan we have started for finding the body is long-term, and we are continuing to monitor the water through our teams,” he told 964media.

The case prompted a large-scale search operation in the area around the Zalm stream, a fast-flowing waterway near Ahmad Awa Waterfall, one of the Kurdistan Region’s most visited natural landmarks. Authorities had previously closed the site to facilitate rescue and recovery efforts.