Al-Ahwaz has these days been witnessing environmental pollution caused by unprecedented sandstorms during the past years; breathing in such circumstances itself is a real, direct threat to human safety in all over the province.
Ahwazi activists have published tragic images of the unhealthy atmosphere in al-Ahwaz on the social networking sites, including Facebook that clearly indicated a significant environmental problem which prevailed when the bad environmental atmosphere continued for three days, while the Iranian officials gave nothing but irresponsible remarks.
“I demanded an urgent meeting to discuss the bad weather in al-Ahwaz”, said Ma’soumeh Ebtekar, Head of Environment Organization in Iran, in her first statement on what al-Ahwaz has been witnessing. This statement however cannot be very promising, as she has already made promises to find a solution for this problem previously, promises that clearly haven’t been fulfilled yet.
While Ahwazi citizens believe this crisis is a result of building dams on Karoon and Karkheh Rivers which caused the drying of the Great Hor beween al-Ahwaz and Iraq, authorities, on the other hand, claim the sandstorms are caused by the desertification the region has been witnessing for the past five years.
Hospitals in al-Ahwaz remained on alert as a result of bad weather; thousands of Arab citizens visited the hospitals with cases of suffocation as a result of inhalation of small, dangerous particles in the air.
Air pollution reached in many cities of the province including Muhammarah, Abadan and Khafajiyeh a point that threatens people’s health directly.
