Southwest Iran’s Water Shortage Protests Turn Deadly

WASHINGTON - Iranian state media say two days of protests against water shortages in the country’s southwest have turned deadly, with gunfire killing one person late Friday.

State news agency IRNA quoted Omid Sabripour, a local government chief of the city of Shadegan in Khuzestan province, as saying “a number of Shadegan's people had gathered to protest water shortages due to the drought, during which opportunists and rioters shot dead one of the demonstrators.” He said the person had been killed by a stray bullet fired into the air.  Friday’s incident came on the second day of Khuzestan water shortage protests that have drawn attention to what experts say is long-running mismanagement of natural resources by Iran’s Islamist rulers. Videos shared on social media and with VOA Persian appeared to show Iranians marching and chanting in Arabic late Thursday and Friday in multiple cities of the province. It is home to ethnic minority Arabs who have long accused majority-Persian Iran's ruling clerics of discrimination and neglect.