Sistanis Struggle as Drought Empties Lake Hamoun

The following piece was written by an Iranian citizen journalist on the ground inside the country, who writes under a pseudonym to protect his identity.

The Sistan people, who’ve relied on Lake Hamoun in southeastern Iran to sustain a livelihood for several millennia, thought their prayers had been answered when torrential rains in Afghanistan ended the 16-year long drought in the region in May. However after just two months, the lake had all but dried up plunging the local communities into economic darkness once more.

Lake Hamoun in the Sistan and Baluchistan province, when it isn’t plagued with drought, is an oasis of inter-winding lagoons straddling the Iran-Afghan border that enables the local people to live relatively prosperously through numerous trades such as agriculture, cattle herding, fishing and mat-making. But without a vital water source, livelihoods quickly die and more and more people leave this ancestral land for the cities. Many that stayed after the drought that began in 1998 wished they’d left as well.

The infamous 120-day long ‘Winds of Sistan’ made life particularly difficult for the local communities because they’d pick up the dust on the lakebed, which would cause severe sandstorms. According to health officials, this has caused people living around the lake to have the highest rate of respiratory and eye diseases in the whole of Iran. Tuberculosis also runs rampant.

However when in spring this year, millions of square meters of water poured from northern Afghanistan into the Hirmand river and onto Lake Hamoun, it rekindled hope among the Sistanis that their glory days of the past were once again upon them. Quickly the lake started looking like it used to; reeds sprouted, fish swam in its waters and migratory birds landed on its shores building nests and laying eggs. Before the drought had hit, a vast range of flora and fauna had inhabited the area including some 25 fish species, reptiles, otters, leopards, water buffalo and countless bird species. Humans have also lived around the 5,000 square kilometer lake since 4,000 B.C., which is unsurprising given the landscape’s breathtaking natural beauty.

But sadly the water coming from Afghanistan was only short-lived and within two months the lake was almost all but dry once again. Part of the reason for this is that a lot of water that reached Iran during these two brief months was insufficiently managed meaning that Lake Hamoun was denied its rightful share; a significant proportion of the water went towards artificial ponds built to provide drinking water for cities. And the water that did reach Hamoun either evaporated because of the unusually hot weather or it was siphoned off to poorly designed agricultural plans. Normally, everglades prevent the water evaporating but bootleggers cut these down.

And so the waterline began to recede, fish began to die and animals died of thirst; the clock had turned back 16 years as if nothing had happened. For the people of Sistan this means the return of drought, dust storms, disease, poverty and perhaps even death.

Shahryar Zaboli, Citizen Journalist, Zahedan