The Smoke of Hawizeh Marshes: Another Environmental Crime Against Al-Ahwaz
The Smoke of Hawizeh Marshes: Another Environmental Crime Against Al-Ahwaz
For over three weeks, thick smoke has blanketed the skies of Hawizeh, Khafajiyeh, and Hamidiyeh due to ongoing fires in the Hawr al-Azim wetlands. Yet, the Iranian occupying authorities have failed to act—no meaningful intervention, no lasting solutions.
The people of these regions, living in the heart of Al-Ahwaz—land blessed with nature and water—wake each day to choking air, burning eyes, and relentless coughing. Meanwhile, silence and deliberate neglect continue from those in power.
These are not mere wildfires. They are the direct result of intentional neglect and the complete absence of environmental management by the occupying regime—one that treats the Ahwazi people as expendable, despite their land holding the country’s richest reserves of oil and water.
Today, the smoke isn’t just a symbol of environmental destruction—it is a haunting reminder of the suffocated rights and lives of the Ahwazi people, ignored by the world and silenced by local authorities.
What’s happening in Hawr al-Azim is part of a systematic policy to suffocate the land and displace its indigenous people. But the Ahwazis, though burdened by illness and hardship, remain rooted in their land, raising their voices from beneath the ashes and smoke.
Let the world hear them.
— Ahwazi Centre for Human Rights
