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Iran Floods Spark New Protests

Iranian officials' indifference toward flood-stricken citizens' suffering in southern provinces may ignite anti-regime protests.

Floods have spread across southwest Iran, including much of Bushehr province, and the people there have gathered to protest the regime’s inaction as their houses are destroyed. Protests are now so worrying for the Iranian regime that the Khuzestan governor actually suspended the Sarbandar mayor.

Ali Khodadadi, head of the Khuzestan Red Crescent, said: “Due to the recent rains, eight provinces, including Khuzestan, were flooded, and in 15 cities, water entered the houses. Ahvaz, Mahshahr, and Sarbandar ports were the most flooded on the roads and houses, and many people’s houses were submerged.”

It wasn’t just water entering houses, but sewage too because the cities don’t have sewage disposal systems and surface water conduction canals. Reports also indicated that the floods shut down every company in the Mahshahr Port Petrochemical Special Economic Zone.

The cause for the floods is heavy rainfall, but it does not help that the regime has failed to ensure proper drainage and has allowed the river routes to be damaged.

Environmentalist Masoud Kanani said: “No management has been done to protect the river route since 2018. Also, for 20 years, the [regime] has not taken any action to improve Ahvaz’s sewage system, and they are traditionally directed to the Karun River. Due to the increasing amount of sediments, rivers’ capacity decreases, and with the least rainfall, this water enters directly into sewers and pipes.”

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have destroyed Iran’s waterways with unnecessary dams, building houses on dry riverbeds, removing trees that stop the ground from eroding, and so much more, essentially making the floods far worse.

Similar floods occurred in 2018 and 2019, with the regime failing to protect the people by building flood defenses or helping the people who were injured or made homeless. They were far more concerned with sending in their forces to prevent protests.

“My thoughts go out to my countrymen in the flood-hit provinces. I call for national solidarity and cooperation to aid them. I call on our courageous youths and popular councils to provide support to the affected women and children,” Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), wrote.

“As our countrymen face the coronavirus catastrophe and flash floods, the ruling mullahs have made natural disasters 100 times more damaging with their inhuman policies. They have wasted the country’s assets on nuclear and missile projects and on the export of terrorism and warmongering,” the NCRI President-elect added.

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