By Rahim Hamid, an Ahwazi journalist and human rights activist

This foul fluid which looks and reportedly smells like liquid sewage is, in fact, the heavily polluted water supply for drinking and washing at a children’s school in the Arab Ahwaz region of Iran.

According to a number of scientific studies, the rates of pollution in the drinking water in towns and villages throughout the region, including the regional capital Ahwaz and the cities of Abadan and Mohammareh, make the water unfit for human consumption.

One recent study indicated that over half of the 200 million square meters of water that make up what remains in the region of the once-pristine Karoon River – now heavily dammed upstream and rerouted to other, non-Arab regions by the regime-  consists of untreated waste products, including domestic sewage and industrial and hospital waste.

This waste contains large amounts of pathogenic substances from the contaminants poured into the river with no treatment; the regime has rejected all efforts to enforce basic environmental legislation.

It is imperative that international environmental bodies, such as the UN Environment Program (UNEP),  take urgent action to break the silence on this horrendous man-made environmental crisis and force the regime to reduce these intolerable levels of pollution which endanger not only the lives of the Ahwazi Arab people but also the existence of the region’s flora and fauna.

These bodies must refuse any financial or other support for regime projects unless they are implemented in coordination with the UN bodies since the regime has never spent any of the funds it has been given for such projects on any environmental ventures that might contribute to improving or developing the region in any way.