A massive funeral ceremony is being held in Sulaymaniyah for Gorran (Change) Movement Leader Nawshirwan Mustafa who passed away on Friday.

Mustafa's body was retrieved from the Faruk Hospital and taken to the big mosque in Sulaymaniyah Saturday morning. Following religious procedures here, thousands joined the funeral procession to Girde Zergete.

Masses from Sulaymaniyah, Halabja, Garmiyan and other regions flock to Zergete to join the final farewell to the Gorran leader. Political party representatives from four parts of Kurdistan and officials from Baghdad are also joining the funeral.

He will be laid to rest in Girde Zergete area next to his house, which was his last will.

Nawshirwan Mustafa was leading South Kurdistan's Gorran (Change) Movement since 2009. A co-founder of Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), he served as an PUK politburo member until 2006. He undertook significant missions in the party as both a politburo member and peshmerga commander. He served as the first deputy secretary of the PUK for a long period as Jalal Talabani was mainly involved in works abroad.

He later left PUK and founded the Gorran Movement which gave a new impulse to the politics in Southern Kurdistan. The Gorran Movement run in 2009's elections and gained 24 chairs in the Kurdistan Regional Parliament by achieving a major success.

A prominent name in Southern Kurdistan politics, he also penned books about his political life and Southern Kurdistan politics, which include 'Along The Way Picking Flowers' (Bedem Rêgawa Gulçinîn), 'Fingers That Crush Each Other' (Pencekan Yektir Dişkênin) and 'Working For Unity' (Le Hewxebatiyewa bo Texwin).