Fuel smuggling: A way of life for dismissed workers in Sistan and Baluchestan
A labor official says the lack of stable employment, project closures, and unemployment in Sistan and Baluchestan have led many unemployed workers to turn to fake jobs or fuel smuggling, a dangerous job with an average of one death on the road every day.
Hossein Ali Akbari, executive secretary of the Sistan and Baluchestan Workers' House, says that in the provincial municipalities, on average, there are three to six months of unpaid wages and one to three months of unpaid insurance. He pointed to the closure of water supply projects in the Sistan Plain and reported that all workers employed in these projects with at least five years of work experience are unemployed.
ILNA news agency quoted Akbari as saying: "The laid-off workers are in difficult conditions. We are also facing the same conditions in the south of the province. Due to unemployment, people's living conditions have become very difficult and they are forced to turn to fuel smuggling to make ends meet. Every day, one to two people burn on the roads of the province in a fire lit by the incompetence of the authorities due to fuel smuggling."
The executive secretary of the Sistan and Baluchestan Workers' House has announced that most of the victims of fuel smuggling road accidents were workers who had been working in a local area for two to three years but had lost their jobs. He called on government officials and members of parliament to be responsible for the misfortunes of the oppressed people of the province and to provide the basis for investment in the employment sector.
Akbari says that in the north and center of Sistan and Baluchestan, instead of permanent employment, a few temporary jobs have been created: "In Iranshahr, Saravan, and Khash, there are no favorable industrial job conditions, and in the south and in Chabahar, a series of measures have been taken in the fields of petrochemicals and steel that we are not optimistic about." Explaining this pessimism, he states that the projects in Chabahar are at the national level and, since they attract workers from all over Iran, they are not very useful to the people of the province.
This labor activist states that the death toll from road accidents in Sistan and Baluchestan is higher than the casualties of war: "Poor people are forced to sacrifice their lives for a bite of bread to make a living, and they get into accidents by speeding and overtaking unnecessarily to reach their destination faster."
Fuel consumption and burning of life
Fuel hauling became common in Balochistan two decades ago, with the onset of drought, the decline of agriculture and fishing, and the increase in unemployment among young people. IRNA News Agency recently reported on the words of a fuel hauler named Ahmad: “When I sit behind the wheel of a van full of diesel, I feel like I am carrying a big bomb with me, but I see no other option to escape unemployment and make a living… On the one hand, there is the possibility of any traffic and road accident, and on the other hand, being caught by the authorities and facing legal punishment.”
Every year, dozens of Baloch citizens lose their lives in confrontations with law enforcement officers. In mid-November, a young Baloch man was shot dead by law enforcement officers in the Lashar area while holding two empty gallons of fuel. In September, another two-gallon fuel tanker was targeted by gunfire at the Kalgan border.
Fuel carriers in southeastern Iran are compared to the kolbars in Kurdish-populated areas in the west of the country, who are forced to accept such a dangerous and arduous job in order to overcome poverty and hunger. ILNA News Agency wrote two years ago in a report on the human costs of fuel carriers: “The kolbars lose their lives by shooting themselves in the cold, and the fuel carriers, by shooting themselves in the middle of the fire, drop their half-burned bodies on the ground.”
The Friday prayer leader of Saravan wrote in an open letter of protest to the governor of Sistan: "Fuel delivery is not a job, but in the absence of work and out of necessity, they have chosen this job instead of stealing and committing other irregularities... The organized fuel mafia has not been attacked so far, but rather the weak and poor segments of society have been targeted. Is such treatment fair and just for someone who is the breadwinner of the family and whose capital is even this low-end car?"
Source: DW
