"'Not Even a Shoe Left': Iran's Missing Migrant Workers After Port Disaster" 1 May 2025

Five days after the explosion at Shahid Rajaee Port, the air still smells of chemicals and loss. Beyond the official death toll of 70, locals say many migrant workers remain missing...

Originally from Khormoj in southern Bushehr, Musa represents the face of Iran's vast migrant labor force - men who travel hundreds of kilometers from impoverished regions to find work in industrial hubs...His colleagues came from villages scattered across Bandar Abbas, Kerman, and the disadvantaged Sistan and Baluchistan province..."Mostly people from Shirabad, Lutak, and villages in Saravan and Sarbaz," he explains. "Workers who didn’t even have a place to stay would sleep in the port area and around the docks in the heat of this port."...These men worked in the shadows - no contracts, papers, or recognition..."It’s not that they had no one," Musa insists, pushing back against the notion that these men were forgotten entirely...
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