Iran denies deaths in water protest

TEHERAN — Iran’s interior minister denied reports that several people were killed during Saturday’s protests over water scarcity in the southwestern city of Khorramshahr, IRNA daily has reported.

“There was not a single death case. There was one case of injury last night when (the protester) was taken to the hospital,” Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told a news conference on Sunday.

He said that security is the core concern of the Interior Ministry and all efforts would be made to maintain it.

Officials gave different accounts of those injured during the protest, with Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaghari saying 11 people were hurt when someone opened fire.

“Ten were members of the security forces” and one was a civilian who was hospitalized, he was quoted by IRNA as saying.

The attacker has not been identified, the news agency said.

Over the past days, residents in some cities of Iran’s southwestern province of Khuzestan have held protests over the shortage of fresh water supplies and polluted running water.

Crowds in Khorramshahr city, located in the southwest of the oil-rich Khuzestan province, demonstrated on the streets on Friday and Saturday.

Angry protesters held up empty water bottles and blamed the government for mismanagement of the water supply.

They asked the officials to stop water transfer from the province to other regions and the alleged selling of fresh water to neighboring states.

Protesters also charged the city’s governor, Vali-olah Hayati, with incompetence and urged him to leave his office.

Reportedly, demonstrations turned into violent attacks on banks and public buildings overnight on Saturday, and protesters threw stones and debris at police, who responded with tear gas.

Khorramshahr and Abadan, two major cities in the energyrich province, have been facing severe fresh water shortages since the beginning of hot season in June.

Elsewhere, local media reported on Sunday that at least 230 people were poisoned after drinking polluted water in Ramhormoz county in Khuzestan province.

Shahyar Mirkheshti, head of the Emergency Medical Incidents Management Center in Khuzestan, said earlier that 65 people had been hospitalized with water poisoning in Ramhormoz county.

Iran is struggling with an escalating water scarcity that has recently reached alarming levels.

Iranian officials have acknowledged that outdated agricultural and irrigation systems and poor water management policies in the past three decades have contributed to nationwide water shortages, which have been exacerbated by below-average precipitation.

Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian has denied that Iran has been selling fresh water to neighboring countries.

In the meantime, Ardakanian said the water shortages in some cities in Khuzestan would be resolved by mid-July.

He said “adaptation to water shortage is the government’s key strategy today”, the Financial Tribune reported on Sunday.