Life in Ahwazi villages: poverty and poor health

By Reza Washahi

According to the Asreh Karoon paper reports last month, the Ahwaz area of Iran has about 6000 villages. Most of these villages have still got Arabic names with Arab inhabitants.

The Ahwazi village economy is based on agriculture, fishing and husbandry and all based on undeveloped, traditional methods, as the government have deliberately not invested in the Ahwaz area. Keeping people in poverty and darkness is one of the long-term policies of the Iranian government toward Ahwazi Arabs.

One of the main problems of the Ahwazi villages is the roads. According to one report published by the local paper Asreh Karoon in March 2007, up to 80% of the villages do not have the advantage of proper roads. Roads are very crucial for the development of the economy of these villages. Usually in the rainy season all the ways become muddy and cannot be used. People who live in villages and need to go to the city, to the hospital and for higher levels of education as there are no medical facilities and only basic primary schools where the use of the Farsi language is enforced; such people will face great difficulty.

In my phone talk with Mr. Abu Jawad from Alavanieh near Khafajieh, he told me that children in his village are suffering from unhealthy conditions. According to the Governor of the province many children are suffering from malnutrition. Many villages were destroyed as the result of the war between Iran and Iraq and the Iranian government has done nothing to restore them after twenty years.

Mine fields left after the Iran/Iraq war are another problem for the border villages. On average about 2 children are killed or lose a limb every month.

According to the Hamshahri daily paper report in December 2006 the Ahwazi rural area constitutes about 45% of the Arab population. Their income is less than $30 per house hold per month according to the World Bank’s statement on average incomes in that region.

Unhealthy water is the major reason for diarrhoea and other water-related diseases in the area. Although Ahwaz has got plenty of water with about 33% of all fresh water in Iran, people even in the major cities suffer from unhealthy water. The problem of water in rural area is even worse as they do not have access to basic medical help.

Last week ISNA reported that Bromi village with 350 inhabitants situated in Ahwaz, on the Mashour road way[i], are suffering from land confiscation by the Revolutionary Guard as well as repeated disconnections of the electricity supply. Environmental problems include the disposal of rubbish, no drains and the lack of healthy water. Yet it is the case that all around Bromi village the area is full of oil wells and pipes.

Bromi village is just typical of the type of situation that Ahwazi Arabs living in rural population are facing.



[i] http://khouzestan.isna.ir/mainnews.php?ID=News-18399