Ali Mazrae

On July 17, 2021, during the uprising against water shortages in Khuzestan province, 17-year-old Ali Mazrae became one of the four youths killed in the protests. Ali lived in the Zavieh district of Ahvaz, a region that had long suffered from the regime’s neglect despite its rich oil reserves.

Widespread protests across several cities, which began on July 15, 2021, were sparked by the ongoing water crisis in Khuzestan, where temperatures soared above 50°C, yet access to clean water was scarce.

Khuzestan, though home to some of Iran’s largest oil fields, remains one of the most impoverished provinces in the country. Decades of corrupt policies, including mismanagement of water resources and irregular dam constructions by entities connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), had dried up rivers and wetlands, leaving communities without a basic necessity: water.

The protests of summer 2021, later known as the “Thirsty Uprising,” erupted as residents demanded clean drinking water, protesting the regime’s four-decade-long water shortages and water cut-offs. Cities across Khuzestan, such as Sosangerd and Shoush, joined in the demonstrations, which were met with brutal force. Peaceful protesters, including Ali, were shot at by regime forces using military-grade weapons. It is believed that regime forces captured Ali Mazrae before being tortured and killed on 17 July. His death, along with those of Hossein Alnaser, Ghasem Khazirei, and Mostafa Naemavi, is a tragic reminder of the regime’s violent suppression of its own people.

By the end of the first week of protests, eight people, many of them teenagers, had been killed by direct military fire. In a cruel twist, the regime often refused to release the bodies of the dead to their grieving families unless they agreed to remain silent about the true cause of death. The suffering of the people of Khuzestan continues to this day, as they still fight for their right to live with dignity and access to life’s most basic needs.

The regime has killed hundreds of thirsty people by driving them to the marshes in some areas and burning them alive, capturing those who survive and condemning them to execution in prisons under intolerable conditions.

Ali Mazrae’s name stands as a symbol of the “Protests of the Thirty’s Uprising” a testament to the ongoing struggle of the Khuzestani people against a regime that has failed them for generations.