ISIS scorched-earth tactics devastated Iraq’s farmland
Amnesty International yesterday said that along with ISIS’s other atrocities in large areas of Iraq, its destruction of farmland and livelihoods were war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In their three-year reign, the extremists sabotaged irrigation systems and wells, destroyed farms and vehicles, and set fire to crops and plants.
In a report released yesterday, Amnesty said ISIS damaged agricultural production to an enormous degree. Production this year is 40 per cent lower than it was four years ago and up to 90 per cent of livestock were lost in some areas.
“Our investigation reveals how ISIS carried out deliberate, wanton destruction of Iraq’s rural environment around Sinjar Mountain, wreaking havoc on the long-term livelihoods of Yazidis and other agrarian communities,” said Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty’s senior crisis adviser.
“Today, hundreds of thousands of displaced farmers and their families can’t return home because ISIS went out of its way to render farming impossible,” he said.
Between 2014 and last year, most towns between Ramadi and the northern city of Mosul were damaged or destroyed in fighting and many of their residents displaced.
Much of Mosul is still destroyed more than a year after the militants were expelled. The government estimates the total cost of the country’s reconstruction at $88 billion (Dh323.23bn).
But although the damage to Iraq’s countryside was as widespread as the urban destruction, the effects have been less publicised. As farmlands diminish, Iraq’s wheat import bill will rise, which is extra spending the nation can ill afford.
Amnesty said ISIS fighters tossed rubble, oil and other foreign objects into wells. They stole or destroyed pumps, cables, generators and transformers, and burnt or cut down orchards.
North-east of Fallujah, in the small town of Karma, one landowner returned to his farm after being displaced by ISIS for two years to find that 600 of his 1,000 palm trees were burnt during clashes between ISIS and Iraqi forces.
The irrigation canals that provided water to the farms had also been destroyed, exacerbating the effects of drought.
North of Karma in the Yazidi village of Snuni, ISIS poured oil down one irrigation well and threw debris in another.
The report said the destruction was deliberate and on a broad scale. In and around Snuni, up to 450 irrigation wells were put out of use.
“It was pure destruction,” Hadi, a former farmer, told Amnesty. “I had a well 220 metres deep, as well as a generator and an irrigation pipe system. They threw rubble in my well and filled it to the top.
“My trees were chopped down. I could see the chainsaw marks. The irrigation system, from the pump to the pipes, was stolen. They did this to send a message: that you have nothing to return to, so if you survive, don’t even think of coming back.”
“There is nothing left,” Majdal, a farmer in his mid-50s, told Amnesty. “Now the house is destroyed and all the trees burnt down. We had 100 olive trees but when I went I didn’t see a single tree in any direction.
“They were chopped down and burnt. They wanted us to lose everything. They didn’t want us to be able to come back to our land.”