It was caused by decades of incompetence, mismanagement, and corruption by the mullahs, who stripped money from construction projects, disaster relief, and environmental protections in order to fund their suppressive forces. This not only made a disaster more likely to happen but ensure it would be more deadly when it did.
The Regime has failed to reckon with their responsibility or help the affected people, which prompted Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian Resistance, to make two separate statements at the tail end of last week to call on the people of Iran to help each other when the Regime wouldn’t.
On Thursday, April 11, Maryam Rajavi urged the people of Ahvaz and Khuzestan Province as a whole to form popular councils to tackle the flood danger.
Maryam Rajavi also said that the facilities of government bodies (i.e. the army and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)) should be given to the people to help in the rescue and relief efforts.
Maryam Rajavi said: “The facilities of the army, the IRGC and government agencies, engineering machinery, naval boats, supply depots, shelters and barracks must be provided to the people to be used to prevent floods, protect people’s lives, save the flood victims, and to temporarily resettle them.”
Maryam Rajavi explained that the Regime was using these facilities to suppress the people, wage war in the Middle East, and line the pockets of the Regime leaders.
Maryam Rajavi said: “These belong to the people and are for the people of Iran and should be used to prevent flooding, the rescue of flood victims, resettlement and reconstruction of flood-hit areas.”
Maryam Rajavi supports the people’s protests in Ahvaz
On Friday, April 12, a group of people in Malashiyeh, Ahvaz began to protest against IRGC commander Mohammad Reza Naghdi, who is the IRGC’s social and cultural deputy and the former head of the Basij, who had shown up but failed to help.
The people chanted “Get lost, Ahvaz will remain free” and “Khuzestan has submerged in water, the authorities are sleeping!”
In the afternoon, people in Ein Do (Seyed-Karim), Ahvaz, protested against the Regime’s decision not to direct water to marshes and failure to build flood barriers. The people chanted “This land has brave men nobody dares to get close to them,” and “[They] wanted us to be humiliated but we didn’t.”
That evening, in Shelang Abad, Ahvaz, people began demonstrating against the Regime’s failure to help flood victims and the decision to divert floods towards agricultural land and residential houses.
Yet more protests continued well into the night across Ahvaz and Maryam Rajavi has given her full support to the protesters. Maryam Rajavi also called on the Regime to immediately address the demands of the Ahvaz people.
