OVER recent days, an already tense situation in Iran’s south-western Khuzestan province, the centre of the country’s oil industry, has deteriorated further with growing protests by locals over breakdowns in critical infrastructure – principally severe water shortages – amid the heat of another sweltering summer and warnings that the country faces its most severe drought in half a century.

Protests have been directed against the nationwide water and power shortages which have acutely affected central and southern Iran, and Khuzestan in particular, and the insufferable conditions people there are having to endure in stifling heat – often in excess of 50°C — including a lack of access to clean water and the dangerously unsanitary situation arising as a result, as well as increasingly frequent power blackouts.

According to widespread reports from on the ground in Khuzestan, at least three young men have been killed by regime security forces at protests there within the last week. Scores of protesters have been wounded and are receiving treatment.