Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province is grappling with a worsening environmental crisis as drought and intensifying dust storms devastate the Hamoun wetlands, with experts warning of farmland collapse, forced migration and irreversible ecological damage, local media reported.
“Caught between drought and choking dust storms, Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province faces an escalating environmental crisis as the Hamoun wetlands dry up and 120-day winds turn into walls of sand,” Tasnim news agency reported on Monday.
Experts warn more than 85% of Hamoun has vanished, driving mass farmland loss, biodiversity collapse, and waves of forced migration.
Studies say 65% of croplands around the wetland are already barren, while dust storms now last over 200 days a year, cutting visibility to a few hundred meters and worsening respiratory illness.
Officials blame water shortages from Afghanistan’s dams on the Helmand River, which deprive Hamoun of its lifeline. Local researchers say completion of the Bakhshabad dam could “deal the final blow” to the wetland.
With little hope of receiving the agreed water rights from Kabul, Iranian specialists are pushing homegrown fixes.
Despite pilot projects and pledges, locals complain of empty promises. “They say they will revive Hamoun, but nothing happens -- every day it dries more,” a resident told Tasnim.
Environmentalists warn time is running out: without immediate action, the region risks irreversible collapse, with fallout for Iran and its neighbors.
Javad Mortazavi, who ran a marriage registration office in Behbahan, was in a temporary marriage with his secretary for several years before she married another man.
After her marriage, Mortazavi invited the husband to his office, laced his drink with sedatives, and fatally stabbed him in March 2023, HRANA said.
The cleric was put to death in Sepidar Prison in Ahvaz.
In a 2023 report, Iranian newspaper Etemad said that Mortazavi had invited the woman’s husband to his office under the pretext of handing over a marriage certificate and killed him by poisoning his coffee.
The report said another account suggested he first drugged the man unconscious and then stabbed him to death on a street in Behbahan.
Some reports claimed Mortazavi even led the funeral prayer over the body before burying the victim in a deserted area, according to Etemad.
At least 818 people, including 21 women, have been executed in Iran this year in Iran according to HRANA.
Iran accounted for 64% of all known global executions in 2024, with at least 972 people executed, according to Amnesty International.
