Voices of pure and beautiful but marginalized and invisible people in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan

It was a quite hot and humid Monday morning in August 2024 with clear sky, when I arrived to Chabahar airport along with some other colleagues from UNICEF Iran team. We were on a mission to monitor UNICEF’s support to the flood-affected community in Sistan and Baluchestan province, specifically in Chabahar and its vicinity.  

In the wake of the devastating floods that struck the area at the end of February 2024, UNICEF has been actively engaged in providing critical assistance to the affected communities including women and children. UNICEF, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and the Ministry of Energy, prioritized the provision of safe water and sanitation services to households and communities affected by the disaster to ensure that children and families stay safe and healthy.

On the first day of our mission, we visited the villages in Dashtyari area, where the UNICEF-procured hygiene kits and prefabricated latrines and showers were mainly distributed among the communities in April and May 2024. While visiting the area and witnessing the level of deprivation, I was amazed by the openness and trust that the communities would show to us to share their needs and stories. Faezeh, the young mother of a one-year-old child happily appreciated receiving the items and talked with us about the needs they have for women and children’s hygiene kits to be supplied more regularly. Other concerns raised by the communities included the households’ economic shortcomings for the provision of their basic needs and the infrastructural shortages such as access to safe water, schools, and hospitals. The latrines and showers which UNICEF had delivered in May 2024, were also in use and had improved the hygiene situation of everyone specially women and children.   

On the second day, we visited the water quality infrastructures which UNICEF provided to the community through the Ministry of Energy including water disinfecting technologies and water quality test lab equipment. As a result of this intervention, around one million people have now access to safe and clean water in the area. As explained by the villagers, with improved access to safe and clean water, the number of gastro-intestinal-infections and skin diseases have decreased. However, as our taxi driver, Mr. Nabatzehi, and the local people in Chabahar confirmed, the flow of water is interrupted frequently during the day with long hours of no access to clean water.

The natural and human resource potentials that this rich part of the country owns were the focus of my mind throughout this 48-hour mission. The future developments could potentially be planned more sustainably because these potentials have remained almost untouched without any wrong human induced interventions like in many other parts of the planet. 

As we finished our mission on the evening of the second day, I was delighted that I got a chance to come to this part of the country to closely witness the living situation of the people and the impact of our interventions in this area. Although the communities were expressing happiness about the distributed hygiene kits and the water quality infrastructures, my mind is still full of thoughts about the large gap that exists to meet the basic needs of people sustainably in different areas of education, health, clean water, shelter, and livelihood.