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Iraqi Experts Say Iran Bears Responsibility for Drought in Hawizeh Marshes

Marshes in Iraq. (AFP)
Marshes in Iraq. (AFP)
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Iraqi Experts Say Iran Bears Responsibility for Drought in Hawizeh Marshes

Marshes in Iraq. (AFP)
Marshes in Iraq. (AFP)

It seems that geographic realities linking Iraq to Iran have caused inescapable problems that are compounding their turbulent political relations.

Issues between Baghdad and Tehran go beyond problems of borders and oil field demarcation, extending to water supplies. Iraq accuses Iran of cutting river water flowing from its territory and thus affecting Iraqi marshes and causing drought.

In contrast, Iranian authorities accuse Iraq of ignoring what is happening in the Hawizeh Marshes, which have been suffering from severe drought and fires.

The Hawizeh Marshes straddle the Iraq and Iran border. The marshes are fed by two branches of the Tigris River in Iraq and Karkheh River in Iran.

In response to Iranian accusations, Iraqi experts said that Iran is responsible for the drought that hit the marshes after it blocked the flow of its rivers. The drought later contributed to the break out of fires during blistering summers.

The marshes is a joint water plateau between the two countries with an estimated area of 1,350 km in Iraq and 1,250 km in Iraq, Hawizeh Marshes expert Jassem Al-Assadi told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“Iranians objected to including Hawizeh Marshes in the 2016 World Heritage List,” Assadi added.

Iran wanted to include the part which lies within its territory, but it was refused because it was carrying out actions that harm the marshes’ environment.

Assadi went on to list Iran’s actions, which include cutting off all the water inflow into marshes by constructing three dams along the Karakh River.

More so, he stressed that there is no valid justification for current Iranian complaints, and that existing documents condemn Iranian actions, not Iraqis.

A senior Iranian official had threatened to take legal action against Iraq if evidence is found to prove that the fires that swept across the Hawizeh Marshes were deliberate.

According to the Ramsar Convention, signed in the Iranian city of Ramsar in 1975, no country was allowed to build any dam that prevents water from reaching the wetland.

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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
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Huge Power Outage Paralyzes Parts of Spain and Portugal

This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)
This photograph shows a flamenco dress factory without light and workers during a massive power cut affecting the entire Iberian peninsula and the south of France, in Seville on April 28, 2025. (AFP)

A huge power outage hit large parts of Spain and Portugal on Monday, paralyzing traffic, grounding flights, trapping people in elevators and leaving power operators scrambling to restore power to millions of homes and businesses.

Some hospitals halted routine work and the two countries' governments convened emergency cabinet meetings, with officials initially saying a possible cyber-attack could not be ruled out. Outages on such a scale are extremely rare in Europe, and the cause could not immediately be established.

Reuters witnesses said power had started returning to the Basque country and Barcelona areas of Spain in the early afternoon, a few hours after the outage began. It was not clear when power might be more widely restored.

Hospitals in Madrid and Cataluna in Spain suspended all routine medical work but were still attending to critical patients, using backup generators. Several Spanish oil refineries were shut down and retail businesses shut.

The Bank of Spain said electronic banking was functioning "adequately" on backup systems, though residents also reported ATM screens had gone blank.

"I'm in a data center, and everything has gone off. All the alarms popped up, and now we're with the groups, waiting to find out what happened," said Barcelona resident and engineer Jose Maria Espejo, 40.

In a video posted on X, Madrid Mayor Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida urged city residents to minimize their journeys and stay where they were, adding: "It is essential that the emergency services can circulate."

In Portugal, water supplier EPAL said water supplies could also be disrupted, and queues formed at stores by people rushing to purchase emergency supplies like gaslights, generators and batteries.

The main Portuguese electricity utility, EDP, said it had told customers it had no forecast for when the energy supply would be "normalized", Publico newspaper said. It warned it could take several hours.

Parts of France also suffered a brief outage. RTE, the French grid operator, said it had moved to supplement power to some parts of northern Spain after the outage hit.

Play at the Madrid Open tennis tournament was suspended, forcing 15th seed Grigor Dimitrov and British opponent Jacob Fearnley off the court as scoreboards went dark and overhead cameras lost power.

TRAFFIC JAMS

Spanish radio stations said part of the Madrid underground was being evacuated. There were traffic jams in Madrid city center as traffic lights stopped working, Cader Ser Radio station reported.

Hundreds of people stood outside office buildings on Madrid’s streets and there was a heavy police presence around key buildings, directing traffic as well as driving along central atriums with lights, according to a Reuters witness.

One of four tower buildings in Madrid that houses the British Embassy had been evacuated, the witness added.

Local radio reported people trapped in stalled metro cars and elevators.

Portuguese police said traffic lights were affected across the country, the metro was closed in Lisbon and Porto, and trains were not running.

Lisbon's subway transport operator Metropolitano de Lisboa said the subway was at a standstill with people still inside the trains, according to Publico newspaper.

A source at Portugal's TAP Air said Lisbon airport was running on back-up generators, while AENA, which manages 46 airports in Spain, reported flight delays around the country.

Such widespread outages are unusual in Europe. In 2003 a problem with a hydroelectric power line between Italy and Switzerland caused a major outage across the whole Italian peninsula for around 12 hours.

In 2006 an overloaded power network in Germany caused electricity cuts across parts of the country and in France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Netherlands and as far as Morocco.