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The Iran-Iraq war and the various tribal and ethnic revolts inside Iran cost the country more than £250 billion in war damages, but the social cost was even higher. In 1991 there were more than 200,000 war widows and some 300,000 war orphans in Iran. Tens of thousands of war prisoners also returned to Iran from Iraq, many of them suffering from mental imbalance caused by years of torture. Some prisoners were teenagers when they were captured; they returned home as embittered men who had spent the best years of their lives in enemy camps. Some were immediately sucked into the criminal networks that combined political violence with the pursuit of personal profit and terrorised the bigger cities. (p. 330) (it) |
