Floods in Sistan and Baluchestan Province “Swept Life Away”

Many residential homes have been destroyed in the flood-affected areas of Sistan and Baluchestan Province. In Zarab, Baluchestan, which supplies most of the country’s bananas, a thousand hectares of banana orchards have been completely destroyed. How is relief aid being provided?

The situation in Sistan and Baluchestan Province has not yet returned to normal after the floods. A local relief worker told Deutsche Welle that people managed to save their lives, but homes, houses, and agricultural lands were destroyed and livestock perished. There is still no news about the fate of some villages. In some of the flood-affected areas of Sistan and Baluchestan Province, authorities said 80 percent of rural infrastructure has been lost.

One of the officials at Darul-Ulum School in Zahedan also told Deutsche Welle in an interview: “The flood has stopped, but there are areas that are difficult to access and have not yet received relief aid. This is because the flood has cut off the communication routes to these villages. These are remote areas and no one has been able to get news from them or help them. Relief efforts are still ongoing.”

He further emphasized: “The flood has swept life away. People who engaged in agriculture around the rivers have been swept away by the flood. The Dashtiari region, which is a fertile agricultural area and produces crops almost every four seasons, sending its products from bananas to watermelons across the entire country, is now completely destroyed. In the Qasrqand area too, the flood has damaged agricultural lands.”

Maulana Abdul Hamid’s Appeal to Help Flood Victims

Maulana Abdul Hamid, the Sunni Friday Prayer Leader of Zahedan, immediately issued a call for people to help flood victims after the floods occurred. According to one of the officials at Darul-Ulum, people from all corners of the country sent initial and essential aid such as food items, blankets, and clothing to the flood victims.

The “Mohsenin” Foundation, which operates under the supervision of Maulana Abdul Hamid, the Sunni Friday Prayer Leader of Zahedan, has taken on an important role in providing relief to flood victims. Abdul Hamid asked people to send aid to flood victims through this foundation as well. People from all corners of the country have provided cash and non-cash assistance to this foundation.

According to one of the officials at Darul-Ulum, the Mohsenin Foundation has so far managed to send 28 relief shipments to the flood-affected areas. Each shipment has consisted of several trucks of aid. He told Deutsche Welle that this foundation sends several shipments daily to the flood-affected areas and has so far managed to establish three main camps in the flood-affected areas in Dashtiari, Zarab, and Bint.

A local relief worker told Deutsche Welle in this regard that there is still no news about the fate of remote villages whose communication routes have been cut off. He emphasized: “General public assistance, regardless of ethnicity and religion, is still ongoing. Even aid from Zoroastrian carriers from Yazd has reached us. Even young people from Tehran, Mashhad, and Shiraz came to the flood-affected area with their own vehicles and helped.”

He stressed that public assistance has been good, but flood victims are mainly waiting for basic and infrastructural government aid.

Source: DW