Image source, Parham ghobadi
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- Author, Parham ghobadi
- Author's title, BBC Persian Service Reporter
I have not managed to convince my parents to leave their home – and much less Tehran – after Donald Trump urged the residents to “immediately evacuate” the Iranian capital.
My father told me: “At our age, with all kinds of health problems, supporting hours of traffic jams and then facing the shortage of necessity products in overpopulated cities after leaving Tehran simply is not an option for us.”
My parents are diabetic. For a month, my mother is confined at home due to a strong vertigo and can only walk with help.
My father suffers from a series of chronic diseases and can barely walk more than 10 meters without having to rest.
Image source, Reuters
Evacuar is not possible for everything
But my parents are not the only ones who stay.
A woman from Iran explains that her parents do not want to leave Tehran: “They believe it is better to die with dignity in their own home than to be displaced.”
He says they told him: “If our home is going to be destroyed, we prefer to sink with him.”
Another woman from Tehran explains why, for many, abandoning the city is simply impossible: “We even have neighbors who suffer from Alzheimer's disease. We have residents of wheelchair.”
For those who have decided to stay, or cannot leave, life is not easy.
Food and fuel are scarce
Image source, Reuters
Many ATMs are empty. Only one in ten stores is open, according to another Tehran woman.
A resident tells me that his building has no water after the breakage of a pipe at the beginning of the conflict, and that there is no plumber available to fix it.
“We have sent children to safer places, but we have stayed, for the cats of our city, for the security of our buildings. If God wants, it will end,” a man told me.
He referred to the numerous cats living in the streets of the city and are cared for by many residents.
Image source, Atta Kenare / AFP via Getty Images
Blockade
As many people live in Tehran as in all of Israel. Imagine trying to evacuate this bustling metropolis with stuck roads and ration fuel.
Each driver is only allowed 25 liters of gasoline per day and those trying to leave face hours and hours of traffic.
Some told me that they ran out of fuel halfway.
Many are fleeing to the quieter provinces of the North, Mazandarán and Gilán.
A trip that normally takes three to four hours from Tehran has taken some more than twelve drivers in recent days.
Image source, Getty Images
“These days we have been checking traffic in the hope of going out at least congestion. But in the end, we are still trapped in traffic,” says another resident.
“It is unbearable heat and, with the shortage of fuel, no one can use the air conditioning. Some cars were damaged or ran out of the way. In all gas stations there are kilometer tails.”
And those who get to their destination face a new series of challenges: there are not enough places to rent.
Food prices have shot. Taxis charges scandalous rates to transport people.
Image source, MINA / Getty Images
Do you just mean “we said” once they kill us?
Many Iranians feel dragged overnight to a war they never chose, after decades of oppression.
“Neither Benjamin Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister) nor Israel nor the Islamic Republic, care about us,” a Tehran man who decided to stay told BBC.
“We are trapped between a brutal regime that does not care about their people and those who bombard us with missiles,” another woman told us.
She believes that the evacuation order of the US president was simply a pretext to justify the civil casualties.
I had a message for Donald Trump:
“What do you mean with evacuating Tehran, while you are sitting on the other side of the world? Do you just mean” we said “once they kill us?
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