Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, January 23, 2020—It has been almost two weeks that floods have stricken the deprived province of Sistan and Baluchestan, southeast Iran, with an estimated damage of over one billion dollars.
While local people are suffering from lack of basic needs and cannot provide their food and water, the Iranian regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei spent over $600,000 for the funeral ceremony of terrorist Qasem Soleimani. In parallel, the Iranian regime’s parliament (Majlis) allocated €200mn to terrorist Quds forces from the National Development Fund.
The regime’s president Hassan Rouhani just had a fruitless trip to the struck region after eight days.
According to reports, 40 percent of houses in cities and villages have been destroyed. At least 20,000 homes have suffered from 20-100 percent damage. The connecting roads of over 870 villages are still cut off after ten days.
The state-run media report $100mn of damage to the agriculture sector. Almost all the fruit gardens are sunk in water and mud. In some villages, all the livestock have perished.
Were all these damages and suffers inevitable? one might ask. While this article will not go deep in the flood reasons, glancing over the regime’s media can open a window to the source of problems.
On January 18, the Resalat state-run newspaper pointed out to the one-billion-dollar damage of the floods and wrote: “The General Manager of Meteorology has emphasized that they time and again warned authorities about the overflow of dams in numerous discussions and Crisis Management sessions, but unfortunately, the local Water Organization did not take them seriously to empty dams’ capacities. The result was the overflow of four dams.”
Arman state-run newspaper wrote on January 19, “Governments normally do not allocate any budget for dredging the rivers… Experts say that dredging the rivers costs $350mn.” However, the regime has imposed over one billion dollars to the province making people suffering.
Moreover, the Iranian regime state-run website Khabar Fori issued a report on January 20, “Analysis shows that overflow of four dams in flood-affected areas of Sistan and Baluchestan and the negligence in watershed management projects played a major role in the damage increase.” The website also quotes a regime’s member of High Council of Provinces, Shahbakhsh Goorgij, as saying, “In 2007-2008, the Guno Storm destroyed the region’s dam. While the dam could be reconstructed in a week, but the government has not repaired it after 13 years. This dam could decrease 70 percent of the damages.”
Similar floods struck northern Iran and Fars province in the early spring of 2019. Casualties and damages were more extensive, but the reason of flood was the same: Mismanagement of the regime.
