For thousands homeless people, a cold night is a battle between life and death. Ten years ago, on such days, Jaber Qaredaghi, then head of the Forensic Medicine Research Center, expressed concern about frostbite deaths during the cold seasons of the year, saying that every year during winter, the homeless are exposed to extreme cold. They experience frostbite and, in some cases, death, as has been referred to the Forensic Medicine Organization in recent years.
He asked the citizens of Tehran to contact and inform the Social Emergency in order to prevent such bitter incidents.
In 2009, 22 people lost their lives due to frostbite in the country. Now, after 10 years, despite the Corona crisis and thousands homeless people in Tehran, the good news is that in the last two years, no homeless person has died due to the cold.
Sayed Malek Hosseini, the director of Tehran City's Social Participation Organization said that this year and last year, considering the assistance provided by various governmental sectors, we did not have any deaths due to frostbite.
Stressing that zero deaths from cold do not mean that no homeless people have died in the past two years, he mentioned that sometimes pictures and videos are published in the cyberspace that claim a homeless person is dead due frostbite. In this regard, we have a death due to homelessness and cold which has been reduced to zero and also a death due to drug abuse.
Overdose deaths have also been declining in the last two years due to the efforts and cooperation of emergency forces. In particular, the emergency activity in identifying people in hangouts has been very significant, he added.
"Thanks to the efforts made by social workers, last year 102 homeless people returned to their families. This year, this number has reached 184 people. It is very difficult to persuade a so-called homeless person who has either been excluded from the family or has chosen to seek isolation to return to the family”, he added.
He also said that currently there are 20 warm houses in Tehran, 16 of which are for men and four of them are for women." The number of clients is 2,100 this year, but last year up to 2,300 people took refuge in warm houses in March, and it is predicted that the number will increase in the coming days due to the cold nights.