TEHRAN — Three rangers were wounded in an armed conflict with poachers in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, the provincial department of environment announced on Saturday.

While patrolling Dez National Park, the rangers spotted illegal fishers in the area and started chasing them which flared up an armed conflict, Fars news agency quoted Ahmadreza Lahijanzadeh, the department of environment’s director general, as saying. 

The three rangers who didn’t wear bulletproof vests were shot in the arm and shoulder, Lahijanzadeh said, regretting that the ranger who was shot in the shoulder is in a critical condition now. 

In June 2016, two rangers named Mohammad Dehqani and Parviz Hormozi were killed during an armed conflict with poachers. Another ranger named Asadollah Taqizadeh was sentenced to death for killing a poacher in July 2007. Fortunately in Taqizadeh’s case the deceased family spared his life and he got released from the prison in March 2016.

MQ/MG