Iranian famine of 1942–1943
The allies took control over the Iranian rail network and contracted half of Iran's publicly- and privately-owned trucks, thus occupying 75 percent of the country's food distribution capacity in the midst of the 1941 harvest.
[5] The U.S. diplomat Louis G. Dreyfus initially reported to the US government that the food situation was serious, but he soon uttered doubts about any wheat shortage and recommended that the U.S. should support "the British stand and insist on Iran helping itself before relying on Allied imports".
[6] Meanwhile, the Soviets banned food shipments from the north, claimed that they needed the resources for the people and soldiers fighting the Germans, and blamed British mismanagement for the famine since no similar conditions existed in the Soviet-held areas.
In April 1941, the American consul had traveled in eastern, central and southern Iran and noted the conditions: "I think the most striking feature of the trip was the scarcity of food throughout the country.
Article 7 of the Treaty of Alliance that legitimised the occupation required Britain and the Soviet Union to protect the Iranian people against the "privations and difficulties" of the war.
"This was grossly unfair," Eeman wrote, "since the British Army, apart from feeding its own troops, provided bread for thousands of Polish refugees from Russia living in camps near Tehran, and distributed flour to the Iranians themselves whenever actual famine threatened.
[10] After nearly two weeks, Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam ordered the police to quell the protests with deadly force, resulting in a number of deaths and injuries on both sides.
[11] During the final months of 1942 and in 1943, the streets of Kermanshah were full of semi-naked and hungry people with fifteen deaths attributed to hunger and poverty occurring every day.
The British and Soviet authorities dominated the use of major roadways and the Trans-Iranian Railroad for their own purposes, and sequestered and deployed Iranian manpower and equipment for the war effort.
[15] Cormac Ó Gráda included Iran in a 2019 analysis of World War II-era famines, briefly commenting that "the death toll, though unknown, was probably modest" and citing Bharier as a reference.
