Why is this happening to us? Is it because we speak differently and wear clothes that don't resemble those worn in the city? How do we make the world talk about what is happening to us? We are being subjected to murder, and our stories silently die with us, and we have no solution"

What does suffering look like?

Mustafa lives in the Hawiza marshes, which is split in half between Iraq and Iran, and in which checkpoints are widespread, Fishermen rarely ever go near the border, They're unarmed, they are not looking for anything besides to catch some fish and make a living, they only carry their nets and their boats, but they're met with live bullets on their own land, Soldiers start by shooting into the air, then at the fishermen, turning their quest to make a living into eternal suffering.

Mustafa bravely asserts that fishermen challenge all the dangers despite the difficulties, and insist that these marshes belong to them and constitutes an essential part of their identity and roots. And even though there are no Iraqi checkpoints on the Iranian-controlled part, fishermen still find themselves exposed to the escalation by Iranian forces that frequently assault and repress them.

Mustafa explains that the Iranian soldiers start by shooting in the air, and then they start targeting the fishermen's boats, which forces them to abandon their means of making a living and to swim back to the land.

He says:”I was terrified when I almost faced imminent death, after an Iranian soldier decided to shoot me, but the bullet went through where I was sitting. It was a terrible experience, but what was even more terrifying was when one of our fellow townspeople lost his life. He had gone fishing in that same place, and one of the soldiers shot him in the thigh. His freind tried to take him back home, which is 30kms away from the water. Unfortunately, there was no ambulance or hospitals nearby. He kept bleeding, leaving a pool of blood in the boat, and eventually passed away."

Death 500 meters away

This isn't the first case of its kind, Mustafa begrudgingly recalls, confirming that the fishermen's meeting spot is more than 500 meters away from the border. They're getting targeted and eliminated on their own land. And everytime they try to protest, They're confronted by the Iraqi side which meets them with racism and mockery, and occasionally wishes death upon them. Mustafa explains that a lot of people lost their lives during the fishing trip, their deadbodies were degraded and got eaten by fish, and their relatives did never really find out about what happened to them till today. Mustafa thus blames the Iraqi side for legitimizing the assaults on the marsh people, as it contributed in tightening their grip on them, by imposing papers and documentation in order for them to be able to merely move from one town to another, and he further elaborates:

"In order to reach one end of the Hawiza marshes, which is part of our ancestral land, we need a permit, and even when we do have the permit, we are exposed to Iranian snipers, and when we go back to Iraqi courts, we fail once again, under the pretext that we were too close to their border, this phrase is enough to obfuscate these stories and bury it along with their tellers, deep down the marsh."

In a single week, there are many casualties, we can't count all those who got hit by the bullets of the border police, and neither can we know of the number of deadbodies which stayed in the Iranian side, whose relatives were unable to get back, and the reason for a number of these cases is that some of them have tried to cross the border because of their dire need of money. Mustafa says:” Some families experience extreme poverty, especially after the desertification of the area and the death of their animals which made them lose their main tools of subsistence, and they thus tried to cross to the Iranian side where Ahwazi arabs live, only to be able to purchase cattle, oil and rice at affordable prices, and later on selling it for a bit higher price in the Iraqi side. They're not trafficking illegal substances, yes, their entrance may be unlawful, but they aren't given due process of law, they are summarily executed with their deadbodies snatched away, as they get detected by border cameras and targeted by a sniper”.

Do Iraqi forces support the killing of fishermen?

Mustafa explains that a family went to court in order to get their son's deadbody back, after it had stayed in Iran for three weeks. The effort was solely made by the family, with no help from the Iraqi authorities, on the contrary, the family faced many obstacles against their simple demands. In addition to having him killed, they are treating his deadbody as if it was their personal property. And when the family did get the deadbody back, the Iraqi side refused to grant the family any rights. They asserted that victim deserved what had happened to him, and even some Ahwari media networks are too afraid to talk about this subject, and also refrain from talking about all the problens in general. Mustafa adds:”The young man who was shot in his bot, on his land and marsh, was called Kazem, he was 19 years old, he lost his life because of his interest in fishing the highest number of fish to financially suport his family, the man who crossed the border to get rice and oil was 30 years old, and others whose names we don't know, plus the injured, the scared, statistics, said one of the officers, who mockingly asked, the Iranian still did not terminate you? When will they kill you all so that we get rid of your existence?"

Life in Ahwar

They are oppressed, looked down at, and are getting eliminated in their own land by the border guards. Everything they owned had been lost, their water, their caytle, their manual labor, sugar canes, and even what is left of the fish. Some of them may find themselves forced to leave for the cities, and the border guards block their way and leave him at the border, or contribute in killing him. Ahwaris suffer in their lives on this land which they inhabited for over thousands of years, its people are trying to rise up. They're exposed to government forces' bullets, while demanding their rights for their water supply, they are heavily repressed. Then they leave their land, they still get repressed, and books are published to agitate against them, what does the Ahwari do? And how does he have a safe house to live in? Mustafa wonders. He always wanted to survive and lives fearlessly. He says:"There is an occupation inposed upon us in our ancestral homeland, we are rejected entry without permits issued by both sides. We did not violate anything and we never crossed beyond bodies of water, we are entitled to walk freely in the whole of al Ahwar because it is our land, all of it, and we do everything we can to live and get water flowing back to us, but the culture if murder will stay and will not be changed, as there are no ways to make our voices heard.