JIROFT, Fars Province -- Here is the southern part of Anbar Abad, one of the districts of Jiroft township in Fars Province.

Here is the land of the deprived, with hungry inhabitants, whose food is limited to the loaf of bread with which they merely survive, if they can find it. "Mr. Red Crescent! We do not fast during the holy month of Ramazan here, because we have not found anything suitable to fill our swollen stomachs for many months now."

That was a paragraph of Fatemeh Paseban, 14, a high school drop out, living in Haji Abad-e Bangloo Village, a district of Anbar Abad, which she herself read for an Red Crescent delegation, accompanied by the IRNA correspondent. "I don't now if you have ever slept with an empty stomach, or ever looked for a loaf of bread in vain? Yes! Only a loaf of dried bread, without any rice or other food items to go with it. We have no money even 2,500 rial (roughly 25 U.S. cents) with which to buy a pack of wheat."

Fatemeh Paseban wears patched shoes, and a shirt whose cloth resembles leather due to not being washed for decades. She then sighs of poverty and hunger, due to unprecedented lingering draught that has been lingering for five years, and has burnt the regional people's lives and possessions.

She then continues, "Take a look at my shoes!" I did. They were made of two rubber bits of a car tire's tube, sewn with plastic strings, so that the pointed rocks of the Haji Abad-e Banglou mountains will not pierce her vulnerable feet with more wounds than the tens they already have. The little malnutritioned girl continued, addressing the head of the Red Crescent delegation "Mr. Red Crescent! Come to save these people, these children's lives from a painful, disparate and definite death, now that it is God's month of Ramazan, for God's sake."

It has not rained for ten whole months in villages in the south of Anbar Abad, on the outskirts of Jabal Zard (yellow mountain). That is why not only no grass is seen in the region, and all sheep have disappeared from its previously green pastures, but 8,000 hectares of citrus gardens and agricultural lands, too, have totally dried up and left fully barren.

As we were proceeding towards the region, I noticed a few tractors, which were busy carrying the trunks of old citrus trees to be burned and tuned into coal to be used for winter fuel with which to keep the houses of the remnants of the deprived residents warm during the approaching winter. The scene of the cut old trees, which once brought money for the villages from across Iran and abroad revealed the depth of the catastrophe, and the immense power of the drought. This innocent village girl went on to add, "We were not poor until a few years ago, since we have vast gardens."

According to statistics by the Agriculture Jihad Organization of Jiroft and Kahnouj region, each five sweet lemon tree in these drought stricken villages used to yield four tons of fruit.

Fatemeh Paseban read the rest of her letter with a sad voice, while pointing to the mountain skirt: "Look Mr. Red Crescent! There is unfortunately even no trace of our once fruit gardens any longer! The middlemen who competed for buying their crops sometimes got engaged in quarrels over whom to buy. The sound of their bargains has long been silenced like the sound of birds that song in those threes.

"Here everything, even life and death, depended so tightly on the crops gained from those trees, which was God's blessed gift for us, that filled and colored our table cloths.

She added, "We have not gone, like many who have done so, because we could not go. Even here, we are entangled with thousands of pains, hardships, poverty, diseases, and troubles, let alone being away from motherland! "We long for rain from sky to enable us to see the beautiful green pastures once again, and to gain our own bread, so that we will not be a burden over the tired shoulders of our government, but we do not know when the clouds are gong to bring the good news of rain. "We ask you only for bread with which to survive, because nothing is more precious than bread for the inhabitants of these villages, of course next to water, which is the essence of life, the lack of which has done what you see to us."

When Fatmeh was through reading out her highly emotional letter, the eyes of the residents of Banglou villagers steered and stared at the mouth of the head of the Red Crescent to tell them something promising.

He paused for a minute and them addressing a crowd of some 100 villages: "We are here on the part of the central government. We have brought with us somewhat for you. Mashallah Pourhosseini said, "Although we have assisted as best we could have, the depth of catastrophe is far worse than one could imagine."

There is a long queue of people in front of Anbar Abad's only bank waiting to receive their no return monetary aid.

They, too, have pains, and sighs in their beasts, that would be healed with a cheap pack of wheat and a little food.