![\"iran-hamedan-watershortage3\"](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/iran-hamedan-watershortage3.jpg\" "\\"iran-hamedan-watershortage3\\"")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Last week, <\/span>locals rallied in Hamedan<\/span><\/a>, western Iran, protesting the water shortage. Protests erupted in Hamedan a few days after regime security forces suppressed people in Shahr-e Kord, the capital city of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, following their days of protests to lack of water.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Hamedan and Shahr-e Kord were once considered water-rich provinces, but in recent years locals in these provinces have been suffering from the most dramatic national water crisis.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Blaming invisible elements, sanctions, or \u201cenemies\u201d for all crises which have become the regime\u2019s trademark, doesn\u2019t fool Iranians. The dire situation has compelled Iran\u2019s tightly controlled state media to acknowledge the regime\u2019s failure to blame others.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOfficials neglect their duties vis-\u00e0-vis Iranians by using excuses such as sanctions, banking issues, fewer oil exports, and the decrease in the government\u2019s revenues. But five years ago, when there weren\u2019t any sanctions and their crippling effects, officials forgot to help people,\u201d the state-run <\/span>Etemad daily wrote on August 27.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAny official who took power in recent years has done nothing but make hollow promises. It has become evident that how much the Iranian people\u2019s rights have been undermined,\u201d the paper acknowledges.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Etemad daily acknowledges the current water crisis in Iran was preventable nearly two decades ago. \u201cAccording to water experts, the [regime’s] actions were mainly aimed at destroying and wasting underground water resources as the most valuable capital of this land,\u201d the paper admits.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n According to Etemad daily, water experts had warned the regime that \u201cThe drying up of dozens of Iran’s valuable wetlands, drying 95% of Lake Urmia due to excessive use of aquifers, mismanagement in changing the cultivation pattern, and ignoring the gradual decrease in rainfall\u201d would certainly result in a disaster. Yet, Iranian authorities turned a deaf ear to all these warnings since they immensely profited from building unscientific dams, deforestation for selling wood, and running factories and plants with no use for Iranians.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Hamedan province, which has dozens of ancient Iranian cities and was considered a water-rich province, now suffers from a lack of water due to the regime\u2019s destructive actions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The water crisis in Shabestar, Shahr-e Kord, Hamedan, and Khuzestan has become intolerable. Long queues in the summer heat to buy a bottle of water for more than 30,000 Tomans is a disaster. Hamedan hospitals are facing a health crisis due to a lack of water.#Iran<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/OtIgojmVsU<\/a><\/p>\n — Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) August 29, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n