In Tehran mosque converted into a factory, women volunteers who would normally attend to visitors to the old battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war have joined the fight against covid-19.
Lined up like factory workers, more than 14 women have taken up positions in front of table-top sewing machines to produce face masks.
But instead of overalls they are clad in black chadors for they are members of the Basij. A volunteer militia loyal to Iran’s “Islamic establishment.”
And in a sign of the times for Iran, one of the countries worst-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, maturity of the women are wearing masks.
Our group used to go to the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war every year to serve visitors,” Fatemeh Saidi, a twenty seven-year-old woman involved in the Basij with her husband.
The group of more than 39 womens travels annually to the battlefields of the 1980-1988 war that youths visit during the Persian New Year holidays as part of their education.
Fatemeh Saidi, this year because of the spread of covid-19, travel between cities was banned and we were not able to go there.
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