Water pollution destroys oil-rich south
Toxic mix of polluted and salty water, dismal public services and open sewers take their toll
Younis Salim clutches his stomach in pain at a hospital in southern Iraq, one of thousands to fall ill in a region flush with oil but desperately short of drinking water.
Sitting in an emergency ward in Basra, along with patients on drips suffering from severe diarrhoea, Salim said he had no choice but to drink from the tap despite knowing the risk.
“We only give mineral water to our three children, but my wife and I often have to drink tap water,” he said, waiting for one of the hospital’s overwhelmed doctors to treat him.
Since August 12, “more than 17,000 patients have been admitted for diarrhoea, stomach pains and vomiting,” said Ryad Abdul Amir, head of Basra’s health department.
He said that in his 11 years in the job he has never before seen such a crisis, which has been exacerbated by a lack of public services and rising prices.
Umm Haidar, a market vendor in the port city, said she also struggles to provide drinking water for her family of 30.
“A thousand litres cost 20,000 dinars ($17 or Dh62.52) and once we have all drunk and washed the children, in half an hour there’s nothing left,” the grandmother said.
Until recently the same water cost 5,000 dinars.
While Iraq’s water shortages are not just confined to Basra, the region suffers from a toxic mix of polluted and salty water, dismal public services, power cuts and open sewers.
The province has abundant energy resources and Iraq’s only stretch of coastline, but it is also heavily populated and has creaking infrastructure.
It has been shaken by weeks of protests over the lack of basic services, despite government pledges to pump billions of dollars into the neglected south.
Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi acknowledges that water salinity has been increasing while chlorine concentration has been declining for decades.
Poisoning Tigris, Euphrates
Basra sits on the Shatt Al Arab waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which flow into the Gulf. Repeated wars and dams that have damaged the ecosystem mean that salt water has taken over and now reaches 300 kilometres upriver from the sea. Waste water produced by the country of 38 million people is also poisoning the Tigris and Euphrates.
In Basra, sewage flows into open canals that join the Shatt Al Arab, mixing with industrial pollution from the oil industry — Iraq’s sole source of foreign income - as well as from neighbouring Iran.
“The Shatt Al Arab has become a dump and for 15 years the treatment plants have not been renovated,” said Faycal Abdallah of Iraq’s Governmental Council for Human Rights.
Fish farmer Jasim Mahmoud fears for his future after losing all 50 million of his juvenile fish and sinking into debt. “It’s the worst season ... and surely the last year for us,” said Mahmoud, after 25 years in the industry.
Back in the emergency room, Abdul Amir fears cooler autumn weather could significantly worsen the situation.
The combination of salt water with a very low chlorine concentration and milder weather will be the ideal breeding ground for cholera, he warned.