Killing of Umm Fahad

Umm Fahad^[a] (Arabic: أم فهد; born Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi (Arabic: غفران مهدي سوادي; 1996 – 26 April 2024) was an Iraqi Tik-Tok personality and internet influencer.^[2]

Umm Fahad
أم فهد
Born	Ghufran Mahdi Sawadi (1996-01-01)January 1, 1996 Iraq
Died	April 26, 2024(2024-04-26) (aged 28) Zayouna, Baghdad, Iraq
Cause of death	Shot by motorbike gunman
Nationality	Iraq
Occupation(s)	TikTok personality, Internet influencer
Known for	TikTok and Instagram videos
Notable work	Dance videos on TikTok
Criminal charges	Producing indecent videos
Criminal penalty	6 months in prison (2019)

Umm Fahad posted videos on Tik-Tok and on Instagram, often of her dancing to music.^[3] Some videos were deemed inappropriate by the Iraqi judiciary and she was once sentenced to six months in prison for "producing and publishing several films and videos containing obscene and indecent language, violating public decency and morals"^[4] according to the Iraqi penal code. Iraqi laws prohibited certain videos containing what the country's authorities deemed as things that violate public decency and morals, including "obscene or indecent language".^[5]

Death

Umm Fahad was shot to death on 26 April 2024, in her Cadillac Escalade outside her house in Zayouna, eastern Baghdad by a motorbike gunman also wounding a female friend. She was 27 years old. Footage of her death was caught on a surveillance camera. Authenticity of the 44 second video was confirmed by a Baghdad police source.^[6] Iraq's Interior Minister announced that an investigation into her death would be launched.

Her death was one in a series of violent deaths of social media influencers in Iraq, including that in September 2023 of Noor Alsaffar (Noor BM).^[5]

Notes

1. Alternatively spelled Um Farad (alternatively known as Um Fahad))^[1]