Iran Destroys Ahwaz Arabs Using “Natural Disaster” as Ethnic Cleansing Tool

It has been more than 10 days since the man-made floods caused by the Iranian regime. All Ahwazi farmers lost their farms and many Ahwazis (about two million Ahwazi Arabs) had to leave their homeland to save themselves from the floods. The greater concern is that they might never be allowed to return home.

Ahwaz region is located in the south and south-west of what is currently known as Iran. The Iranian regime instead of providing aid, sent the regime’s terrorist group known as IRGC (also known as Sepāh-e Pāsdārān-e Enqelāb-e Eslāmi) to attack Jalizeh village for refusing to abandon their homeland. As a results of that attack, 34 People were injured and 1 dead. Here is a video of the IRGC members attacking Ahwazi Arabs.

Natural Disaster – Ethnic Cleansing Tool

abud jelbazi shot dead by irgc.
Abud Jelbazi shot dead by IRGC.

In the writer’s opinion the man-made floods by the Iranian regime are worse than a natural disaster. A leaked document proves the Iranian regime is recruiting non-indigenous people (Here is a detailed article on the leaked document) and migrating Ahwazi Arabs away from their lands. In fact, it is even worse than the Mohammareh black Wednesday massacre as it is utilising “natural disasters” as a tool of ethnic cleansing and forced migrating Ahwazi Arabs.

Some people may not remember the “Black Wednesday massacre,” a crime against humanity by the Iranian regime. The massacre was carried out directly in response to Ayatollah Khomeini’s direct order to Ahmad Madani, the military governor of Ahwaz at that time. The order was to kill all of the members of political and cultural organizations of the Ahwazi Arabs in Mohammareh city.

From killing Ahwazi Activists to publicly announcing that they hate Arabs (on different platforms), the Iranian regime’s deliberate attempt to Forced Migrate Ahwazi citizens from Ahwaz to other regions, has been their plan since the regime’s early days.

jalizeh villagers after irgc attack
Jalizeh villagers after IRGC attack.

The Iranian regime after occupying Al-Ahwaz, initiated programs and policies of Persianization by enforcing Persian or Farsi as the official language and banning the teaching of Arabic in the region’s schools.

More than 90% of all oil and gas wealth claimed by Iran is located in the Ahwaz region. Despite this Natural wealth, poverty spreads among the Ahwazi people.

Ahwazis are victims of institutionalised wider spirit destitution and deprivation such as for example;

  • HealthCare
  • Decent Education.
  • Lack of equal employment opportunity.
  • Clean water
  • And even clean air

Ahwazi Arabs in Iran often face state discrimination in areas including politics and culture. Iran is the second country after china in terms of execution, Ahwazi Arabs make up most of their lists. The Iranian regime even executes pregnant woman. Thousands of Ahwazi Arabs were executed and imprisoned by the Iranian racist regime to keep Ahwazi Arabs under control.

No End to Ahwazi Suffering

There is no end to the suffering of the Ahwazi people.

Sand storms now routinely plague the region as a result of a decline in humidity throughout the whole region as wetlands vanish. From heavy and deadly sandstorms, to racism and the way we were treated, influenced many Ahwazi Arab people, including myself, to wake up and defend ourselves against Iran. Iran always had hatred towards Arabs.


Ahwazi Arabs are among the most brutally oppressed peoples in the World. In the past (before Iran’s occupation of Al-Ahwaz) Ahwaz was a rich land with rich people, run by the Ahwaz leader Shekh Khazal. Since Iran’s occupation of Al-Ahwaz, Iran seized all oil, gas and other natural resources. Ahwazi Arabs received nothing in return. Ahwaz is also one of the most oil-rich nations in the world. Ahwaz is the backbone of Iran.

The situation of the flood damage is so bad that the Iranian government banned foreign activists and journalists from visiting the area.

Iran has seen major flooding for the past two weeks in hundreds of villages, towns and cities in the western half of the country, where in some places an emergency situation has been declared. According to the spokesman for the emergency department, 57 people died in the floods and about 478 people were injured.

man shot by IRGC
Man shot by IRGC

Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister tweeted, blaming US sanctions for not receiving aid from other countries for the Ahwaz floods, even though the floods were caused by the Iranian regime themselves.


Not long ago, the Iranian regime said there is no water in Dez Dam and other dams as the regime banned farmers from farming. They destroyed all the wetlands even though people who live there were earning money through fishing and making mattresses.

How Iran’s Khuzestan Went From Wetland to Wasteland

Dams constructed:

Now, to provide the water needed for these water-based industries, as well as the prosperity of agriculture in the desert provinces, during the mentioned period (from the Iranian fifth state to now), six reservoir dams and a number of regulated and detached dams were constructed on the outskirts of the Karkheh, Karun and Jarahi rivers

List of Dams

  • Parsel 11 (Banghstan) dam
  • Ghotvand Oliya dam
  • Techan Dam
  • Dez Dam
  • Dehnou Hendijan Dam
  • Ramhormuz (Jareh) dam
  • Septon dam
  • Sare Tirak Haftgel dam
  • Karoon 1 (Shahid Abbass por) dam
  • Shoh Hamid dam
  • Zehiriyeh Dam
  • Karoon 3 dam
  • Karkheh dam
  • Kaltondar dam
  • Maroun Dam
  • Masjed Solieman (Ghedar Lander) dam
  • Vali Asr dam
  • Karkheh Regulatory Dam
  • Ghotvand Regulatory Dam
  • Dez Regulatory Dam
  • Behesht Abad dam
  • Tunel Kuhrangh 3 dam

True Reasons Behind the Ahwaz Floods

The Iranian authorities opened gates of the “Abbas por” Dam in the Masjid Suleiman after opening the gates of three dams in Ahwaz – Maroun Dam, Dez Dam and Karkha Dam, under the pretext of rising water levels behind these dams, according to the Iranian officials in Ahwaz.

Thousands of Ahwazi rural inhabitants of villages on the outskirts of Susa (Shoosh) city are still trapped in floods up to the time of writing of this report. The Iran Red Crescent could only rescue and accommodate 1600 of them. The condition of thousands of Ahwazi rural inhabitants is still hazardous.

While the Iranian authorities are not rescuing people from catastrophic floods, the terrorist IRGC officers attacked defenceless Ahwazi people. These were the inhabitants of Jelizi rural area, 20km from the Ahwaz capital on Tuesday night, 2nd April 2019. Iranian officials allowed flood water out of dams towards Ahwazi agricultural land and homes without warning people or providing aid.

Video shows floods from a helicopter

Ahwaz citizens seek international help stop floods

The Centre believes that what is going on all over Ahwaz comes under pretext of implementing the “Khuzestan comprehensive security plan (1)” in order to Iranian regime reduces the Arab population to one by third.

Evidence That Flooding is Man-Made

According to following evidence the Centre believes that the flooding phenomena in Ahwaz is deliberate and man-made:

First: the Iranian regime prevented the Ahwazi farmers for last 4-5 years from farming due to lack of water and drought, and Iranian environmental scientises warned about the end of underground water and alarming low level of water behind dams in Ahwaz region.

Second: Dez dam as example has density of 3.3 billion Sq/m and it needs minimum of six months continuous raining to be filled up completely and scientists warned about lack of water behind the dam, how it become full within few rains led to opening the emergency gate after 69 years?

Third: how can we imagine that all the dams in Khuzestan (part of Al-Ahwaz) region became overwhelmed at the same time and their emergency gates opened simultaneously in 2019?

Fourth: the Iranian governor in Khuzestan, criminal Shariati said in the Iranian pro media that if the Ahwazi people are not displacing themselves quickly, the authorities will relocate them coercively.

Fifth: as it happens around the world, if floods happen, the army and other governmental representatives help people by moving them to safe places and providing warm food and dress for the affected people, but the Ahwazi people despite nearly one week passing received no support.

Sixth: why the flood phenomena happened in 2019 but not any other year ??? is it because the security plan execution time ends by 2019.

Seventh: one of the Iranian officials (cannot remember the name) 3-4 months ago said that we are going to have severe floods in south and southwest of the country. If the Iranian authorities were aware of floods with reasonable amount of time, why did they not take rational steps to reduce casualties?


Ninth: while Ahwazis are suffering from the severe flood, why are Iranian media are not speaking about the Ahwazi miseries? Is there a blockade instructed by Iranian security service to not cover Ahwazi floods?

Tenth: in so appalling situation, IRGC forces broke flood-defense dykes built by Ahwazi farmers against devastating floods. As shown in yellow line on the picture, IRGC exploded the flood-control levees to protect oilfields in wetland without taking into consideration risks to the lives of Ahwazi people.

Iranian Authorities Said

Iranian authorities said minimum two million Arab residents, most of them farmers, have been displaced by themselves from their villages, while floods threaten hundreds of thousands of residents of the “Susa,” “Khafajiya,” “Albesaitin” and “Dar Khewin” cities.

Opening the emergency gates of Dez Dam after 69 years with other IRGC built dams such as “Karkheh,” Abass Por” and “Maroun Dams,” diverting the stream of flood water towards Arab villages and agricultural lands in the occupied Ahwaz, targeting the demographic changes of the Arab population structure and destroying the agriculture economic structure in all over Al-Ahwaz.

Ahwazi activists have been sent videos from Ahwazi people complaining about Iranian authorities ignoring Ahwaz flood victims. The Ahwazis say the Iranian government deliberately opened the dams but has not opened roads and ways to send it into both Hor al-Azim and Al-Dauragh wetlands, to protect the oil fields and installations.

Ahwazis people didn’t get any aid or support from the government so Ahwazis from man to women and from young adults to adults turned to other Ahwazis for help.

While Ahwazi people helped others in need, the IRGC secretly arrested some of them.

IRIB did an interview like this one but it was not published on national TV. Filtering, from Internet Filtering to selective News, so we shall continue the hashtags #BanIRIB and #IRGCTerrorists.

Ahwazi Statement

We Ahwazi people strongly condemn the Iranian heinous crimes by deliberately making the flood to change the Arab demographic structure of Al-Ahwaz and call for international aid for Ahwazis that are suffering from century phenomena made by Iranian regime. The centre calls upon humanitarian organisation and NGOs to put pressure on the Iranian regime to stop its vicious policies in Al-Ahwaz and condemn it in the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations and parliaments.


  • Stop Persian racism and bigotry against Ahwazis.
  • Free political prisoners.
  • Demand unconditional freedom and equality.
  • Stop stealing Ahwazi rivers’ water.
  • Understand that Ahwazi Arab lives matter.
  • Put an end to ethnic demographic change in Ahwaz.
  • Understand that Ahwaz is Arab homeland and respect this fact.
  • Allow education in Arab language.
  • Understand that Ahwazi people’s language is their identity.
