The speech of the representative of Ahwazi Source in UN session
The speech of the representative of the Ahwaz Source organisation in the UN 14th session for minorities issues in Geneva.
The speech is as following:
On behalf of Ahwazi Source organisation
Water emergency situation in Ahwaz
During July 2021, thousands of Ahwazi people demonstrated, in several cities and villages, demanding their rights to water.
Ahwazis protest against Iran’s hydro projects and policies which have dried out rivers and marshlands, devastated agriculture and villages and caused forced collective displacement of more than 800 thousands Ahwazis.
Our people demand Iran to open the valves of its dams which are known as Arab killer dams.
Iran but responded to this innocent people by hot bullets and killed more than 15 and prisoned more than 5000.
While Iran drowns down hundreds of Ahwazi villages during winters, it bans agriculture during summers in Ahwaz. According to the governor of Ahwaz more than 600 Ahwazi villages have no water, neither for drinking nor for agriculture.
Iran’s controversial hydro projects over Ahwazi rivers are as following:
- Establishing more than 86 dams over the Ahwazi rivers outside the province
- More than 10 tunnels transferring billions of cubic meters to central plateau of Iran, annually
- Establishing 8 mega sugar cane projects with huge water consumption and devastating salty effluent
- Establishing dams in salty areas which pumps salt continuously to Ahwaz which has devastated agriculture
Due to this vast pollution of Air, water and soil, cancer cases have increased between 2 to 10 folds and more than 5000 Ahwazis are dying due to pollution annually and the annual death rate increased by about 30%.
We ask the United Nation to follow this silent ethnic cleansing in Ahwaz and save the Ahwazi people from the imposed drought and save our rights in the shared waters with other provinces.
Mahdi Hashemi
Date: 3rd Dec 2021