Iranshahr: fuel carrier Hassan Maksaei killed by unwarned shot

Hassan (Musa) Maksaei, a fuel carrier from Kahnuj county and father of four, was shot on the Iranshahr road on Tuesday, 13 October 2026, and died of his severe injuries after being taken to Iranshahr hospital. HRANA, the news agency of the Human Rights Activists in Iran, has attributed the shooting to military forces.

According to a HRANA report that cited Haalvsh, a Baluchistan human rights outlet, the vehicle carrying Hassan Maksaei's fuel was fired on without any prior warning. The bullet hit a tyre, the vehicle overturned, and he suffered serious injuries to the head and side. The report states that the shot was fired from a Peugeot 405; it gives no further details about the occupants of that vehicle.

Fuel carrying: earning a living under fire

In border regions, especially Sistan and Baluchestan province, poverty and a lack of work have pushed thousands of people into carrying fuel in private vehicles. For years, the forces of the Islamic Republic have dealt with these citizens by shooting at them directly, a response that ends less in arrests and trials than in their deaths on the roads.

According to HRANA's annual report, in the year 1404 (March 2025 to March 2026) at least 32,820 citizens were shot at by military forces; 6,822 of them, including 23 fuel carriers and 15 kolbars (border porters), died, and 25,998, including 13 fuel carriers, were wounded. A large part of these figures stems from the crackdown on the uprising of December 2025 and January 2026.

A history of repression in Baluchistan

Hassan Maksaei's death comes as reports of abuse and discrimination in public institutions in Sistan and Baluchestan continue, among them the complaint of female nurses at Imam Ali Hospital in Zahedan about sexual harassment. Fellow Baluch have for years been victims of structural poverty and of violence by the forces of the Islamic Republic, and so far no officer has been held accountable for the killing of fuel carriers.

Hassan Maksaei, a father of four, was shot dead on the Iranshahr road merely for carrying fuel.