With a long shoreline on the Strait of Hormuz, Iran's southern trade hub of Bandar Abbas has found itself at the frontlines of the war with the United States, with residents struggling to revive livelihoods battered by months of fighting.
Like elsewhere in Iran, economic strain has squeezed households since US-Israeli strikes triggered the Middle East war on February 28. But unlike much of the country, the port city of around half a million people has remained exposed to fighting even after an April 8 ceasefire brought relief elsewhere.
But despite a lull in hostilities in July, residents still feel squeezed. Saeed Tajik, 42, used to work at a shipyard before losing his job and turning to driving a taxi.
"The prices of housing and food have become extremely high. Almost all the basics -- rice, yoghurt, and oil -- have doubled," said Tajik.
Fuel shortages have long been common in southern Iran, where authorities restrict supplies in an effort to curb widespread fuel smuggling.
But now, "the queues have become longer ... it happens that we wait in the long line for fuel only to get told 'there is none' upon arriving," Tajik said as he drove past a station where motorists waited under the punishing summer heat.
Hormuz has emerged as a central flashpoint after an April ceasefire and June framework deal failed to resolve disagreements between Washington and Tehran over the future management of the strait.
During the war, US strikes hit bridges, highways and railway infrastructure around Bandar Abbas until mid-July, in what analysts saw as attempts to cut off the city and disrupt Iranian military logistics in the south.
- 'Nothing left' -
Inside the city, under a towering concrete statue of two armed men with their arms trained towards Hormuz waters, economic strains play out in long queues snaking outside petrol stations and soaring prices squeezing shoppers in local markets.
The city's repeatedly hit airport remained largely closed until August 15, leaving travelers facing arduous road journeys, sometimes combined with flights and boat crossings.
Outside the city, construction crews still toil under the sweltering summer sun to repair the Gachin bridge, split by a US strike, as cars rumble along a dusty detour below.
Along the waterfront, traditional wooden vessels known as lenjes sit moored alongside fishing and commercial boats, part of a centuries-old trading network linking southern Iran with Arab states across the Gulf.
Arash Tondro, 45, used his lenj to carry Iranian fresh and dried fruit to the United Arab Emirates and return with household goods and other imports.
"My income dropped to zero at the beginning of the war," said Tondro, who later rerouted some trade through Oman's Khasab port as regional seaways were disrupted and "many of the lenjes were hit by drones".
After the UAE suspended trade with Iran on Tuesday following a missile attack on a ship that Tehran denied carrying out, Tondro said he was again unsure how his work would be impacted.
"People in the south mostly rely on trade or fishing. If you take the sea and trade away from them, there is practically nothing left. We don't have agriculture here; whatever there is comes from the sea," he said.
- 'No sales' -
As night falls and August's oppressive heat begins to ease, fish vendors set up along a busy street, laying out shark, tuna and shrimp as the smell of the day's catch hangs in the humid air.
Among them is 22-year-old Anoush Mallah, who recently moved onto the street after soaring rents forced him to close his shop in one of the city's bazaars.
"Business has been terrible since the war started. There are no sales, it's very weak," he told AFP.
"People are short of money. The fishermen aren't going fishing either."
Many fishermen around Bandar Abbas only began returning to sea in recent weeks, after months ashore for fear of being caught in the crossfire of US-Iran fighting.
Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to end the war. For Mallah, the uncertainty only adds to the strain.
"Let it (the war) start and get some result; right now, we're just left in limbo," he said.
