Hotags: Quenching Thirst, Drowning Dreams

The sun beat down mercilessly on the parched Baluch landscape, its heat shimmering off the dusty ground.

Twelve-year-old Shahrbano wiped the sweat from her brow, her small hands calloused beyond her years. The empty bucket swung at her side as she approached the Hotag, its still waters a deceptive oasis in the arid terrain.

As she leaned over to dip the bucket, Shahrbano felt the earth shift beneath her feet. In a heart-stopping moment, she lost her balance, her arms windmilling as she tried to regain her footing. Shahrbano fell.

Her fingers scrabbled desperately at the earthen sides, leaving faint traces that would later tell the tale of her final moments.

"Shahrbano!" Sadra, her six-year-old sister, called out, her young mind unable to comprehend the tragedy unfolding. Sadra innocently believed Shahrbano was playing, unaware of the life-and-death battle unfolding before her eyes.

But this was no game. Beneath the surface, Shahrbano fought against the weight of her soaked clothes, the tangle of branches and leaves that seemed to reach out to drag her down.

Her lungs burned as she struggled to reach the surface, each attempt weaker than the last. She never emerged from the Hotag's deadly embrace.

Shahrbano's body was later found trapped among wood, leaves, and tree branches in the murky waters. The Hotag, once a source of life in this unforgiving land, had claimed another young soul.

In the arid landscapes of Baluchistan, a traditional water conservation method known as Hotag has turned into a deadly trap for the region's most vulnerable residents - its children.

These man-made water pits, originally designed to collect and store precious rainwater for people and livestock during dry seasons, are now at the center of a heartbreaking crisis.

The tragic story of 12-year-old Shahrbano serves as a stark reminder of the dangers these pits pose. According to the Baluch Activists Campaign, a human rights organization in the region, the first six months of 2024 alone saw 14 children lose their lives after falling into these water pits.

An informed source, speaking to IranWire, said: "Many of the children who drown in Hotags are girls because they do most of the housework. They have to go to the Hotag for washing."

Her name was Shahrbano Sanjari, a 12-year-old girl from the village of Dampag, in the Bahukalat section of Dashtiari city.

According to an informed source who spoke to IranWire's citizen reporter, Shahrbano lived in a small room with minimal facilities, sharing the space with her sister, mother, and grandmother. She was a third-grade student.

Following a flood in Dashtiari and the subsequent school closures, Shahrbano often played at home with her six-year-old sister, Sadra, and a boy of the same age.

A week after Shahrbano's death, when schools reopened, her elderly grandmother, who struggles to walk, went to the school. She embraced the principal and teachers, saying she had come to see her granddaughter's classroom.

Overcome with emotion, she entered the classroom and kissed the desk where Shahrbano used to sit. She tearfully said, "Shahrbano, Eid is near, your dress is ready, my dear, where did you go?"

Sajedeh Bakhshan was 11 years old when she drowned in one of the Hotags in her village in April 2022. Her father, Yar Mohammad, recounted the harrowing incident in an interview with IranWire's citizen reporter.

On that day, Sajedeh had taken the goats out with a friend around 3:00 PM. Yar Mohammad was sleeping at home when someone woke him up with the devastating news.

"I don't know how I travelled the way until I reached the Hotag," he recalls. "I took off my shirt and jumped into the water. I was in the water for about 10 minutes. Its depth is about 4 meters, and its width is very large, maybe 500 meters."

The Hotag, located next to their village, is hidden by trees with long branches and thorns. Every year, people cut these branches for cooking fires or animal feed, causing some branches to fall into the water. This makes it difficult for anyone who falls into the Hotag to escape.

"Someone called from that side of the Hotag to come; her shoes fell on this side. I went in the same direction and started to swim under the water when my foot suddenly hit Sajedeh.

"My daughter was stuck to the leaves inside the Hotag. With the help of another person, we took her out of the water, and I passed out."

The villagers rushed Sajedeh's body to Oraki Hospital, the only medical center half an hour away, but it was too late.

"I didn't believe it," Yar Mohammad says. "I returned home. I was depressed for a long time. Sajedeh was my only daughter. I couldn't believe her empty place."

The grieving father, who has already lost two young children to illness, emphasized that the pain of losing Sajedeh is different. "I wish this Hotag did not exist. If it didn't, Sajedeh would still be with me, alive."

Holma is the youngest victim of Hotags in Baluchistan this year. She was just one year and eight months old. Her family lived right next to a Hotag, and one evening while playing around the house, she fell into the water.

A relative recounted the heartbreaking event to IranWire, stating that Holma's father pulled her out of the water immediately, but it took 15 minutes to reach Talang Hospital - the nearest medical center. Despite her small lungs fighting for life, Holma succumbed due to the lack of medical facilities at the hospital.

This was not an isolated incident in Sistan and Baluchistan province, where children frequently die due to inadequate medical facilities, often located far from their villages.

Many reports highlight children dying from scorpion and snake bites due to the lack of antidotes in nearby medical centers.

Just two weeks prior, an 18-month-old baby named Leila Baluch died from a scorpion bite because of the hospital's distance and the absence of an ambulance.

Holma's father told IranWire's citizen reporter that most villagers are too poor to build fences around the Hotags.

"Those in government positions are only thinking about filling their own pockets and do not care about the rest of the Baluch nation. If they cared, our situation would not be like this now."

Expressing his grief and frustration, he added, "Believe me, I am not capable of building a bathroom. Why are we suffering like this?"

Hotags are hand-made water pits, some of which are hundreds of years old. They represent a traditional method of collecting rainwater to meet the needs of people and their livestock during dry seasons.

A local trustee of the Dashtiari region explained to IranWire that, "Each Hotag can store water for almost two years. The depth of Hotags is almost eight meters, and in some places, it reaches 10 to 12 meters."

The Dashtiari region is dotted with Hotags, although their number is fewer in the Bahkalat section of Senta due to the flow of the Sarbaz River.

The source, who requested anonymity for security reasons, added, "Because many villages do not have piped water, people are forced to use Hotag water for all their needs, including drinking, cooking, washing dishes, clothes, and bathing, despite various diseases."

However, he emphasized that villages along the road have piped water and do not rely on Hotags. "Any village with a larger population has more Hotags," he says. 

"In some relatively affluent villages, residents buy drinking water, which is expensive. But in poorer villages, drinking water is sourced from Hotags," he adds.

A young girl from Jama'at-Zehi village in Chabahar told IranWire that in 2023, two children drowned in their village. "After two kids drowned, they fenced off the Hotag next to the school," she explained.

However, she noted that several other Hotags in Jama'at-Zehi remain unfenced. Despite some houses having piped water, it is sometimes cut off for three or four days.

When it is connected, the water is often so muddy that the Hotag water is clearer. Thus, villagers continue to depend on rainwater collected in Hotags for their daily needs.

"Our tap water is even more unhealthy than Hotag water," the young girl says. "After every flood and rain, tap water becomes dirtier, but people have to use it because not everyone can afford water purifiers and water softeners. In some Hotags, there are Gando crocodiles."

She refers to incidents where short-nosed crocodiles have attacked children who visit the Hotags for daily chores or play. In 2010, a 10-year-old child from Molabad Keshari village in Sarbaz lost her hand in an attack when she went to the river to fetch water and wash dishes. An adult from Keshari was also fatally attacked by a crocodile a few years ago.

In the same year, the head of the Chabahar Conservation Department reported that approximately 400 short-nosed crocodiles, or Gando, live in the Bahukalat protected area, noting that "sometimes we see damage and loss of life and property."

An informed and reliable source emphasized to IranWire that the government neglects the issue of Hotags, and villagers lack the resources to build fences around them. "Because the Hotag is muddy and slippery, children who come to play, collect water, or even water the sheep often slip and fall in," he said.

According to this source, between 10 and 20 children die in Hotags every year, most of whom are between 5 and 12 years old. Adults have also been among the victims in the past. He further highlighted that many of the children who drown in Hotags are girls.