![]() ![]() ![]() The 1918 flu pandemic spread to the entire country via three main entry routes: Transcaucasia to Tabriz, Baghdad to Kermanshah and India to the south Iran (the latter significantly vected by the British Indian Army soldiers stationed in Bushehr). Influenza Morbidity and Mortality during the 1918–1919 Influenza Pandemic in Cholera, the plague and typhus spread with terrifying speed across the country. The colossal food crisis, plus large numbers of soldiers, refugees and destitute people constantly on the move in search of work and survival, facilitated a deadly combination of pandemics and contagious diseases. Outbreak of diseases īeyond deaths from starvation, epidemics also killed large numbers of people. The devastation caused by famine and contagious diseases continued for many years. Nevertheless, in the turbulent post-war era neither the national government nor foreign powers were in a position to do much to alleviate the human crises. Thus, for example, the printing-house workers, who had recently formed a union, staged a demonstration in Tehran in 1919, during which crowds attacked the bakeries and granaries, and called on the government to increase food rations, to standardize the price of bread, and to regulate the quality, supply and sales of foodstuffs. Īdulteration of bread, as well as the exorbitant prices charged by some bakers, outraged Tehran's working poor. In Tehran, the situation was "aggravated by hoarding and short-selling to the customers by bakers". In the western city of Kermanshah, confrontations between the hungry poor and the police ended in casualties. Photo taken by 1st Australian Wireless Signal Squadron in BijarĪ series of severe droughts from 1916 on further depleted agricultural supplies.īy early February 1918, the famine spread throughout the country, and panicked crowds in major cities began to loot bakeries and food stores. All this made the living conditions of the poor even more dreadful. During the war, it often cost more to transport grain than to grow it, in many parts of Iran. The requisitioning of pack animals, mules and camels for the oil industry in Khuzestan, and for the British and Russian armed forces, left the country's transport network in serious disarray, and disrupted the distribution of foodstuffs and other goods throughout the country – with disastrous consequences. Russian troops blockaded all the roads in the north-east province of Khorasan, prohibiting any transfers of grain, except those destined for the Russian army. In November 1915, the price of one kharvar (100 kilos) of wheat increased to twenty tomans, "if there any to be found", after the total granary of the south-east province of Sistan was sold off to the British troops. A variety of factors are commented to have caused and contributed to the famine, including successive seasonal droughts, requisitioning and confiscation of foodstuffs by occupying armies, speculation, hoarding, war profiteering, and poor harvests.Ĭapacity of modern hospitals operating in Iran as of 1920 Affiliation So far, few historians have researched the famine, making it an understudied subject of modern history.Īccording to the estimates acknowledged by the mainstream view, about 2 million people died between 19 because of hunger and from diseases, which included cholera, plague and typhus, as well as influenza infected by 1918 flu pandemic. The famine took place in the territory of Iran, which despite declaring neutrality was occupied by the forces of British, Russian and Ottoman empires whose occupation contributed to the famine. The Persian famine of 1917–1919 was a period of widespread mass starvation and disease in Persia (Iran) under the rule of the Qajar dynasty during World War I. ![]()
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