NCRI – Thousands of Residents of the southern Iranian city of Ahvaz formed a human chain on Thursday for the second time to protest against the regime’s plans to divert water from the Karun river to central Iran.
The move would deprive the city of drinking water, and increase illness and air pollution – already occurring in the Ahvaz due to the low river level.
The 720km-long Karun was once the largest river in Iran, but locals blame the regime authorities for a series of rivers in country running dry.
The protesters carried signs that read: “Karun is for Khuzistan”, “I am a farmer, I would not give a drop of water of Karun”, and “We will save Karun.”
The river rises in the Zard Kuh mountains of the Bakhtiari district in the Zagros Range, and is joined by tributaries including the Dez and the Kuhrang before passing through Ahvaz, the capital of the Khuzestan Province of Iran, and meeting the Persian Gulf.
In Biblical times, the Karun was known as the Pishon, one of the four rivers of Eden/Paradise.
