NCRI – Thousands of residents the southern city of Ahwaz once again formed a human chain along Karoon River on Thursday afternoon to protest the Iranian regime plans to divert this river’s water that threatens to dry the river.
The residents said that with this destructive project, Khuzestan will soon face a drought and turn into a desert. Fearing spread of this popular protest, the suppressive security forces attacked protesters battering people and arresting a number of them.
According to the regime’s plan, 1200 million cubic meters of water from Karoon will be diverted to the central provinces. This plan will sharply reduce the water of rivers leading to Khuzestan plain and the Persian Gulf.
This plan that serves the interests of the revolutionary guards on the pretext to bring water to other sections of the country will turn Iran’s most fertile lands into dry and barren lands.
Even now, with some diversion of Karoon’s water, the average depth of this river in and around Ahwaz has dropped to less than one meter and the water has turned quite salty. Many fertile lands of this province are no longer cultivatable and many peasants have lost their jobs and moved to cities.
This plan is so destructive that regime’s parliamentarians fearing an uprising by people of Khuzestan, have warned that “transfer of Karoon’s water to other provinces will destroy Khuzestan Province”.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 29, 2013
