Why not all in Iran celebrate the Iranian New Year
While Nowruz is a relaxing 13-day holiday for most Iranians, the high number of road fatalities makes Nowruz also a time of sadness for many.
TEHRAN — Most countries around the world ring in the new year Jan. 1. Iranians, however, celebrate their new year, known as Nowruz, on the first day of spring. This is followed by a 13-day holiday, which this year began March 21 and ended April 2. The holiday may last as long as 20 days for some, as it is not rare for Iranians to begin their break five days prior to the new year and go back to work two days after the holiday officially ends. While the Nowruz holiday is a great time to relax, it triggers sad memories for some.
Indeed, Nowruz road accidents are nothing new in Iran. However, the severity of the situation has prompted the country’s Legal Medicine Organization to designate a part of its website to the issue, providing visitors with graphs of Nowruz road fatalities compared with other causes of deaths, such as suicide, homicide and electrocution.
According to these graphs, an average of 50 people a day lost their lives in Nowruz road accidents in recent years. On average, 48 people were killed daily during the first 20 days of the Iranian New Year in 2015 and 2016, with a total of 968 road fatalities being reported for Nowruz 2015 alone. In 2014, the average number of daily deaths was estimated at 54.
In light of the high Nowruz death toll, it should be noted that the number of travelers spikes during the holiday. In April 2015, Masoud Soltanifar, then-head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization, said that there were some 15 million Nowruz travelers in Iran, out of a population of some 80 million.
