(CNN) A peaceful protest over a water shortage in the southern Iran city of Khorramshahr turned violent Saturday, after clashes between police and protesters broke out, Iran's state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.

Police used tear gas to contain the crowd. Protesters responded by throwing stones and other objects, damaging public property, including the Holy Defense Museum and a local bridge.

Iran's interior minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told state media that one person was hospitalized with injuries and there were no fatalities.

The protests broke out due to a clean water shortage that has affected the city and nearby Abadan during the hot Iranian summer. Temperatures in the southern region can reach up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Read More</s>Hundreds of demonstrators protesting against shortages of drinking water in southwestern Iran have clashed with police, local media report.

The state-run IRNA news agency said the protesters gathered on June 30 in the city of Khorramshahr, some 650 kilometers from Tehran, chanting slogans against the Iranian authorities.

It said police fired tear gas late in the day as protesters threw stones at officers.

Some unrest continued into the night, the agency reported.

Shots could be heard on videos circulated on social media from the protests in the port city that has been the scene of recent demonstrations, along with the nearby city of Abadan.

The authenticity of the videos could not be confirmed.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

A number of protests have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over the lack of drinkable water.

On June 20 and 23, hundreds of residents of Abadan held rallies in front of the governor's office and outside the offices of the city's water and sewage system.

Officials in Khuzestan Province have promised to end the water shortage in Abadan and Khorramshahr in a few weeks, after a new water transmission pipeline becomes fully operational.

Critics say mismanagement by the authorities, combined with years of drought, has led to a drop in rivers' water levels and the groundwater levels in the province.

The protests in Khorramshahr also came after three days of demonstrations in Tehran starting from June 24 over the country's troubled economy.

The rallies included protesters confronting police outside parliament and officers firing tear gas at the demonstrators.

They also led to the temporary closure of the city's Grand Bazaar, where shopkeepers denounced a sharp fall in the value of the national currency, the rial.

With reporting by Reuters and AP</s>Clashes between police and protesters in southwestern Iran left several people injured early Sunday.

The demonstrations in Khorramshahr had been largely peaceful for several days as people complained about water shortages and pollution in the region.

Videos circulated online showed protesters throwing stones and confronting security forces, while state television showed images of buildings with broken windows. Gunfire could also be heard in some videos. Police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said no one was killed in the clashes. His deputy Hossein Zolfaghari said 11 people were injured, including 10 police officers and one civilian.

Much of Iran is facing drought conditions, which analysts say the government has made worse by mismanagement.

The country has also seen protests against its economic situation, including last week in Tehran, amid a plummet in the value of Iran's currency and a rise in inflation.

The economy is facing added pressure since U.S. President Donald Trump's decision in May to withdraw from the international agreement limited Iran's nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions.</s>DUBAI: Iran called for calm on Sunday after protests in a southern city over water shortages turned violent overnight with reports of police shooting at demonstrators who attacked banks and public buildings.

“No one has been killed in the unrest and just one person has been wounded in a shooting,” said Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, quoted by the state news agency IRNA.



“Our effort is to bring these protests to an end as soon as possible with restraint from police and the cooperation of authorities, but if the opposite happens, the judiciary and law enforcement forces will carry out their duties,” Rahmani Fazli was quoted as saying.

Shots could be heard on videos circulated on social media from the protests in Khorramshahr, which has been the scene of demonstrations for the past three days, along with the nearby city of Abadan. The videos could not be authenticated by Reuters.

State television showed banks with broken windows and footage appearing to shows an identified demonstrator armed with a rifle.

Police fired tear gas as protesters set fire to a bridge, and to a garden surrounding a museum which is a memorial to the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, state media said.

A number of protests have broken out in Iran since the beginning of the year over water, a growing political concern due to a drought which residents of parched areas and analysts say has been exacerbated by mismanagement.

Oil-rich southwestern Khuzestan province, where Khorramshahr is located, is the home of many members of Iran’s ethnic Arab minority, who have long complained of alleged discrimination and tight control by security forces.

Speaking before the clashes, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that the United States was acting together with Gulf Arab states that regard Iran as their main regional foe in trying to destabilise the government in Tehran.

“If America was able to act against Iran, it would not need to form coalitions with notorious and reactionary states in the region and ask their help in fomenting unrest and instability,” Khamenei told graduating Revolutionary Guards officers, in remarks carried by state TV.</s>DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Gunfire erupted as Iranian security forces confronted protesters early Sunday amid demonstrations over water scarcity in the country's south, though authorities said only one person was wounded in the clashes.

The protests around Khorramshahr, some 650 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Tehran, come as residents of the predominantly Arab city near the border with Iraq complain of salty, muddy water coming out of their taps amid a yearslong drought.

The unrest there only compounds the wider unease felt across Iran as it faces an economic crisis sparked by President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Protests began in Khorramshahr, Abadan and other areas of Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province on Friday. The demonstrations initially were peaceful, with protesters chanting in both Arabic and Farsi.

But late Saturday and into early Sunday morning, protesters began throwing stones and confronting security forces in Khorramshahr, according to widely shared online videos. State television aired images of rocks and broken glass covering sidewalks, as well as smashed ATMs. Women and children fled as gunfire echoed.

Heavy machine gun fire could be heard in one video showing demonstrators dragging away a man who couldn't walk. Another video appeared to show a man carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the back of a motorcycle near protesters.

State TV reported Sunday afternoon that "peace had returned" to Khorramshahr and an unspecified number of protesters had been arrested. It said some demonstrators carried firearms during the unrest.

It's unclear what sparked the violence. Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told journalists Sunday there had been no deaths, and just one person wounded.

"Such protests are directed by the propaganda of opportunists from places and people that are recognized by us as foes," Fazli said. "You observe how they are fueling such incidents in the foreign media and in the cyberspace these days."

Khorramshahr and the wider Khuzestan province have seen pipeline bombings by Arab separatists in the past. Tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers were killed in the province during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

Exacerbating that unrest is the drought. The Iran Meteorological Organization estimates 97 percent of the country faced some form of drought. Analysts also blame government mismanagement for diverting water away from some farmers in favor of others.

"Although Iran has a history of drought, over the last decade, Iran has experienced its most prolonged, extensive and severe drought in over 30 years," said a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations agency.

Some 230 people were poisoned in Khuzestan province after a 20-hour water outage in Ramhormoz county led to drinking water not being chlorinated, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday. The protests did not appear to be linked to the poisoning.

The protests overnight came after three days of demonstrations last week in Tehran, including protesters confronting police outside parliament and officers firing tear gas at the demonstrators. The rallies led to the temporary closure of the city's Grand Bazaar.

The anger is fueled by the Iranian rial plunging to 90,000 to the dollar - double the government rate of 42,000 - as people watch their savings dwindle and shopkeepers hold onto some goods, uncertain of their true value.

Similar economic protests roiled Iran and spread to some 75 cities and towns at the end of last year, becoming the largest demonstrations in the country since the months-long rallies following the 2009 disputed presidential election. At least 25 people were killed and nearly 5,000 arrested during the protests in late December and early January, which took place largely in Iran's provinces rather than the capital.

The economic crisis has been fueled by Trump's May 8 decision to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal and restore sanctions. International firms that made billion-dollar deals with Iran largely have pulled out of them, while the U.S. now is demanding its allies stop buying Iranian oil.

Iran's first Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri on Sunday mocked the U.S. for "begging the Saudis" to increase oil production to drive down rising global oil prices. Trump claimed Saturday that Saudi Arabia might increase its production by some 2 million barrels of oil a day after a call with King Salman. Saudi Arabia later acknowledged the call, but did not mention Trump's 2-million-barrel claim.

"If any country attempts to take Iran's place in the oil market in this battle, we will consider it a big treachery to the Iranian nation and the world community and they will surely pay for this betrayal someday," Jahangiri said, without elaborating.

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jongambrellAP . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>Several people were injured in the southwestern Iranian city of Khorramshahr late Saturday when demonstrators protesting against water pollution clashed with police, Iranian state media reported.

The protesters set fire to rubbish bins and damaged public property, prompting police to fire tear gas to disperse them, state-run IRNA news agency said Sunday.

At least one protester was seriously injured in the clashes and “a few policemen” were hurt, the agency said, quoting Khorramshahr deputy governor Valiollah Hayati.

The governor denied reports carried by Saudi media that Iranian security forces had shot and killed at least four protesters.

“No one has been killed,” IRNA said, quoting Hayati.

The unrest erupted after some 500 people, mostly youth, gathered at a main square in the city to protest against pollution that is seeping into the city’s drinking water network, IRNA said.

Protesters also gathered outside a mosque, the agency added.

According to IRNA, there have been several protests against water pollution in Khorramshahr and the neighbouring city of Abadan over the past three days.

Iran has been facing mounting economic woes since the United States in May pulled out of a 2015 accord between Tehran and world powers that had lifted international sanctions in exchange for a scaling back of the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme.

Iran’s currency has plunged almost 50 percent in value in the past six months against the US dollar and inflation is on the rise.

Traders in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar held a rare strike on Monday against the collapse of the rial on the foreign exchange.

Brief scuffles had also broken out on Monday between protesters and police in the capital.

On Sunday, Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri said in statements broadcast on state television that Iran is suffering from several problems, not just US sanctions.

Among Iran’s “woes”, he cited its dependence on oil revenues along with a weak private sector and a fragile banking sector.

Industry Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari told a news conference in Tehran on Saturday that the situation was not “critical” but “special”.

He urged foreign firms working in Iran to resist US “threats” of sanctions and to continue doing business in the country.</s>A recent Niti Aayog report projects that Delhi and other cities could run out of groundwater by 2020.

Gurugram receives less than 600mm of rainfall annually, which puts the city firmly in the semi-arid zone. Rainfall is concentrated in the monsoon months and, historically, Gurugram has survived on groundwater and stored water for most part of the year.

Gurugram benefits from its location in the foothills of the Aravalli, which has a lot of cracks, fractures and fissures, making them a high recharge zone.

Public water supply is increasingly being met from Yamuna canal water. However, the future water allocation for Gurugram will depend on the extent of flows remaining in the river and on competing demands. Hence, groundwater will always remain a key element for meeting city’s requirement.

Speedy urbanisation in the last two decades has increased the demand for water, which is exceeding the sustainable supply, and Gurugram now stands at a very critical juncture. Private and public borewells indiscriminately withdraw groundwater, depleting the already low groundwater levels. According to the Central Ground Water Board, in 2006, Gurugram block withdrew about 300% more water than the sustainable groundwater recharge level (this number, no doubt, has only increased). This over extraction is leading to a decline of groundwater level by as much as 1.5 metre per year.

At the same time, the increasing concretisation of the city reduces the potential for natural recharge, which in turn increases storm water runoff. Instead of recharging groundwater, rainfall leads to floods in the city. A blessing turns into a curse.

There is, therefore, an urgent need to protect from construction areas that recharge groundwater naturally, such as ponds, nullahs, low-lying areas, bundh submergence areas and, most importantly, the Aravalli hills.

Why should we keep storm water drains unlined and open?

Once you concretise, you have lost the option of water seeping into the ground and you have no idea whether the sewage lines are flowing into it. The tendency to throw garbage into open nullahs, makes keeping them clean a challenge, but that cannot be a justification to concretise and cover large storm water drains.

Concretising large nullahs drastically reduces their cross section area and their storm water retention and discharge capacity, while also reducing recharge. It also treats storm water as a problem that has to be transported out, rather than a resource for recharge.

Also, why should we dump our rainfall runoff in Najafgarh drain when it’s known that water table in Gurugram is fast depleting? Instead, we need to find ways to channelise water into these storm water nullahs/drains, for storage and recharge.

Similarly, low-lying areas may be zoned as parks and open spaces, to hold rainfall and runoff in the monsoon months and act as green recreational and biodiversity spaces for the rest of the year.

Treated sewage can also be used for recharging groundwater and for areas such as the Ghata Bundh and the low-lying belt of Basai, which benefits from treated sewage and is a major habitat for migratory water birds.

Submergence area are prime examples that need to be conserved for biodiversity, groundwater recharge and recreation.

To become sustainable and ensure our long-term water security, we also need to reduce the per capita demand for fresh water. Metering bore wells can give feedback to consumers. Incentivising the shift to water efficient fixtures—low flow taps etc, can help, as can slab pricing that makes overuse expensive. Further, facilitating equitable distribution of water across all sections of society, especially renters in informal settlements, must be made a priority.

Without sustained effort, groundwater level will continue to decline, and leave the city with a serious groundwater shortage and even an absolute non-availability within our lifetimes.

Akbar left Fatehpur Sikri, near Agra, and went to Lahore because of water shortage. Where will the residents of Gurugram go?</s>Several people were injured in the southwestern Iranian city of Khorramshahr late Saturday during a demonstration against water pollution, Iranian state media reported.

The protesters set fire to rubbish bins and damaged public property, prompting police to fire tear gas to disperse them, state-run IRNA news agency said Sunday.

Officials gave different accounts of those injured during the protest, with Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaghari saying 11 people were hurt when someone opened fire.

"Ten were members of the security forces" and one was a civilian who was hospitalised, he was quoted by IRNA as saying.

The attacker has not been identified, the news agency said.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, meanwhile, said just one person was injured in a "confrontation involving shots".

He denied reports carried by Saudi media that Iranian security forces had shot and killed at least four protesters.

"The statements saying numerous people were killed are false," he said during a press conference.

The unrest erupted after some 500 people, mostly youth, gathered at a main square in the city to protest against pollution that is seeping into the city's drinking water network, IRNA reported.

Protesters also gathered outside a mosque, the agency added.

According to IRNA, there have been several protests against water pollution in Khorramshahr and the neighbouring city of Abadan over the past three days.

Iran has been facing mounting economic woes since the United States in May pulled out of a 2015 accord between Tehran and world powers that had lifted international sanctions in exchange for curbs on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme.

Iran's currency has plunged almost 50 percent in value in the past six months against the US dollar and inflation is on the rise.

Traders in Tehran's Grand Bazaar held a rare strike on Monday against the collapse of the rial.

Brief scuffles also broken out on Monday between protesters and police in the capital.

On Sunday, Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri said in statements broadcast on state television that Iran is suffering from several problems, not just US sanctions.

Among Iran's "woes", he cited its dependence on oil revenues along with a weak private sector and a fragile banking sector.

Industry Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari told a news conference in Tehran on Saturday that the situation was not "critical" but "special".

He urged foreign firms working in Iran to resist US "threats" of sanctions and to continue doing business in the country.</s>Hundreds of Iranians have demonstrated against water shortages in a southwestern city, in one of the biggest water-related protests that Iran has seen so far this year.

Video clips verified by VOA Persian and sent by residents of Khorramshahr showed large crowds protesting in the streets of the inland port city Friday. Located in Iran's Khuzestan province, Khorramshahr is adjacent to the Karun River that forms the border with Iraq. The region has suffered shortages of drinkable water for months, in part due to a lack of rainfall.

Residents who spoke to VOA Persian said they also blame the shortages on perceived government mismanagement of water supplies and suspected government transfers of those supplies to Iraq and nearby Kuwait. Earlier this month, some residents broke open and filmed a pipe carrying fresh water toward the Iraqi border, a revelation that outraged many locals as the video spread on social media.

State run news agency Fars reported the Khorramshahr protest, saying about 300 people demonstrated against the rising salinity of the city's running water.

In one video clip of the protest, dozens of angry residents confronted the city's governor, Vali-olah Hayati, accusing him of incompetence and saying he should be ashamed and leave his post.

In another video, protesters, some holding up empty water bottles, chanted: "Police, catch the thieves!"

WATCH: Residents of Khorramshar, Iran, call authorities "thieves" for failing to provide adequate fresh water, in this June 29, 2018, protest

One Khorramshahr resident told VOA Persian the city's running water is so polluted that people have been unable to purify it with home purifiers.

In Friday's edition of VOA Persian's Straight Talk call-in show, a caller who identified himself as Mehran in the Khuzestan provincial city of Masjed Soleyman said he believes the transfer of fresh water to Kuwait is the main cause of the region's water crisis.

Iran signed a deal with Kuwait in 2003 to deliver 955 million liters of fresh water daily to the Arab state via a pipeline for 30 years. Tehran has not signed such an agreement with Iraq. But an Iraqi TV news report broadcast about a month ago and monitored by VOA Persian showed Iraqis in the southeastern city of Basra lining up to receive what the report said was fresh water supplied from nearby Iran.

The report included soundbites from two men who thanked Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for what they called the gift of clean water.

The Fars report about Friday's protest in Khorramshahr quoted Iranian Energy Minister Reza Ardakanian as denying that Iran has been selling scare fresh water to neighboring countries.

Ardakanian also said the water shortages experienced by Khorramshahr and the nearby city of Abadan would be resolved by mid-July, when a water distribution system known as Ghadir is due to become operational.

Iranian officials have acknowledged that outdated agricultural and irrigation systems and poor water management policies in the past three decades have contributed to nationwide water shortages this year. Below-average precipitation has exacerbated the situation.

Afshar Sigarchi and Behrooz Samadbeygi for VOA's Persian Service contributed to this report. Michael Lipin reported from Washington.</s>Displaced people in Kalma camp, South Darfur, have complained of a severe drinking water shortage caused by deferred maintenance. Prices for water have gone up since April.

Sheikh Abdallah Abdelrahman, who is an official for the religious affairs at Kalma camp, reported to Radio Dabanga that the crisis has forced displaced people to fetch water from areas far from the camp. They need donkeys in order to reach these areas and return with tanks and buckets filled with water.

He attributed the water shortage to the depletion of wells in the camp. “There has not been any work on the solar energy system to make it more efficient, and the pipes in the hand pumps have not been replaced recently.”

As a result, the prices for water have gone up in Kalma camp because of the difficulties in obtaining it.

Also in En Nahud in West Kordofan, water has become more expensive. It amounted to SDG30 ($1.06) as the town districts suffer from a severe water shortage.

A housewife in En Nahud informed Radio Dabanga that all the districts suffer from thirst as the water supply of the water network has been interrupted, with cuts lasting sometimes for more than two weeks.

“This led to a rise in the price of a barrel of water. Trees bearing fruit around the houses are drying up. I pay a monthly amount of SDG96 ($3.40) for the water bill and am not receiving any water!”

Meanwhile in eastern Sudan in El Gedaref state, bakery owners have threatened to close their shops because of the shortage of gas and the doubled price of firewood.

A bakery owner told Radio Dabanga that the gas shortage started a month ago. “So we have resorted to the use of firewood.” His bakery was no the only one to start using firewood instead of gas. Now, the price of pieces of firewood has risen from SDG8* to SDG15.

“I’m threatening to stop working because of the lack of gas and the financial losses from the use of firewood.”

According to other bakery owners, only nine out of the more than 300 bakeries in El Gedaref currently operate with diesel; the rest is used to working with gas.

* Based on the indicative US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan
A peaceful protest over a water shortage in the southern Iran city of Khorramshahr turns violent after clashes between police and protesters.