The pistachio trees at the village in southern Iran are long dead, bleached white by the sun - the underground water reserves sucked dry by decades of over-farming.

The last farmers left with their families 10 years ago, and the village has the look of an abandoned Martian colony.

The dome-roofed, mud-walled homes are crumbling, once-green fields are now nothing but dirt furrows, and the only sign of life is a couple of drifters camping out in an old storehouse.