Iran: Saving Lives, Helping Refugees

Mercy Corps rebuilt three health houses (clinics) that were completely destroyed in the Bam earthquake of December, 2003. These young women are standing in front of the construction site. Photo: Cassandra Nelson/Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps began working in Iran in May 2003 to enhance the skills of Afghan refugees who wanted to return home. That December, we rushed emergency aid to families affected by the devastating earthquake that hit the historic city of Bam, and later helped communities recover from the disaster.

Afghan Refugee Repatriation
For more than two decades following the 1979 Soviet invasion, millions of Afghans fled conflict and poverty in their homeland and settled temporarily in neighboring Iran. While the pace of repatriation accelerated in recent years, about 1 million Afghan refugees remained in Iran when Mercy Corps began working with them in 2003.

With funding from the U.S. government's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, Mercy Corps provided 6,624 families — 35,964 people —with vocational assets such as construction tools or sewing machines as they returned home and sought new livelihoods.

Our work involved helping refugees acquire or upgrade technical skills in areas such as carpentry, masonry, bicycle repairing and hand-pump repairing. Women received training in skills such as tailoring, embroidery and rug making. And farmers were given water-pumps to enable them cultivate their lands without solely being dependent on rainfall.

Bam Earthquake
Mercy Corps responded quickly to the devastating earthquake that hit Bam on December 26, 2003. Mercy Corps staff worked with international partners to distribute emergency relief supplies to 23,000 people, including families made homeless by the 6.5-magnitude earthquake.

Mercy Corps delivered thousands of blankets, 1,000 space heaters and hundreds of liters of drinking water to families who had lost everything. We also shipped 500 family-sized tents to Bam, which were used to build a makeshift camp that provided much-needed shelter during cold winter nights.

In the year following the earthquake, Mercy Corps continued to deliver humanitarian relief and helped communities in the areas of health, water and sanitation, and psychosocial services for children.