Life in Iran’s War-Torn South on the Strait of Hormuz

Kaveh Rostamkhani – Erfan Kouchari

At nearly 104 degrees Fahrenheit and 80% humidity, Bandar Abbas was already an open-air sauna at 5 a.m., as fishers unloaded their fresh catch of shrimp and fish at the city’s wholesale fish market, right at the wharf. The intense tang of rotten fish residue was unbearable.

Elias Rahimi, like other wholesalers, had placed a tiny wooden desk in the middle of the covered marketplace. A calculator, a card reader, a notebook and a record of sales from recent days filled the desk, behind which he sat on a red plastic chair. Next to him stood a heavy-duty platform scale. Loads of tuna and queenfish lay in rows on the tiled floor around him.

Each day, clients show up at his desk, weigh fish, and make purchases or settle sales. Rahimi uses a phosphor-green highlight marker to strike the deal. Then the clients put their notebooks on his desk to have the payment confirmation stamped in them. The ritual acts make him resemble a judge. By 6 a.m. he had already sold 2 tons of fish.

“My sales have dropped by 30% since last year, but thank God the business is still running well,” Rahimi said, with the typical relaxed southern Iranian accent, elongating the words’ last vowel. In his view, the rapid inflation and loss of purchasing power of the population have contributed to the drop, in addition to the maritime siege initiated by the U.S. Navy, which means fishers “cannot sail into deep waters, resulting in smaller catches and less variety. Numerous times they’ve struck vessels when they went farther.”

By 7 a.m., as the humidity rose and the heat became unbearable, Rahimi locked up his chair and desk and left his mobile office at the country’s largest loading site for seafood, which is a major economic lifeline for southern Iran, with an estimated annual yield of more than 800,000 tons.

The marketplace is only a stone’s throw away from the parking space of a nearby vessel that was struck twice on July 8 and 9 this year. More than 30 boats and their fishing accessories were destroyed. While the half-ruined building is being used again, a burnt roof, cracked murals, melted fishing nets, torn ropes and flat cart tires vividly testify to the risks the fishers endure….

Source: NEWS LINES MAGAZINE

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