Nafiseh Kohnavard

Nafiseh Kohnavard (Persian: نفیسه کوهنورد) is a multilingual correspondent who is focused on Middle East issues for BBC World Service/ BBC Persian.

She has covered allied air strikes on Islamic State, the siege of Sinjar, Iraq where the terrorist group massacred thousands of people from the Yazidi religious minority, and the battle between Islamic State and the Kurdish Peshmerga for Kobane in Syria. Kohnavard has been based in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq as well as the UK and spent most of her time for some years on the front lines against Islamic state militants with the Kurdish Peshmarga, Iraqi, US army forces.She was the only international correspondent that flew over west Mosul on an Iraqi combat helicopter and brought evidence of how IS uses children as human shield.[1]

Kohnavard was born in Urima,West Azerbijan province, Iran. She started her career in Tehran and was sacked by hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the Persian daily Hamshahri after she asked outgoing president Khatami a few questions in her interview about the "parallel Intelligence services" and Kayhan published articles accusing her of being a spy.[2]

Kohnavard's work has included human interest stories of people affected by conflicts.[3] In 2020 Kohnavard appeared as the reporter in the documentary film "Yazidis Secret Children", produced and directed by Katie Arnold won One World Media Award's best TV documentary. The documentary is about Yazidi women who had been taken by IS, forces to sexual slavery and gave birth to children born of rape but for returning to their community they faced a heartbreaking choice: Leaving IS fathered children behind and going back home or keeping their children and leave Yazidi community.[4]