Toxic Mix of Polluted, Salty Water in Iraq’s Basra

An Iraqi man collects dead fish from a reservoir at a fish farm north of Basra in southern Iraq, on August 29, 2018. Haidar MOHAMMED ALI / AFP
An Iraqi man collects dead fish from a reservoir at a fish farm north of Basra in southern Iraq, on August 29, 2018. Haidar MOHAMMED ALI / AFP
TT

Toxic Mix of Polluted, Salty Water in Iraq’s Basra

An Iraqi man collects dead fish from a reservoir at a fish farm north of Basra in southern Iraq, on August 29, 2018. Haidar MOHAMMED ALI / AFP
An Iraqi man collects dead fish from a reservoir at a fish farm north of Basra in southern Iraq, on August 29, 2018. Haidar MOHAMMED ALI / AFP

Younes Selim 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 diarrhea, Selim 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 told AFP, waiting for one of the hospital's overwhelmed doctors to treat him.

Since August 12, "more than 17,000 patients have been admitted for diarrhea, stomach pains and vomiting," said Ryad Abdel 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 Haydar, a market vendor in the port city, said she also struggles to provide drinking water for her family of 30.

"A thousand liters cost 20,000 dinars ($17) 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 amount of 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.

This year the crisis is coupled with a drop in rainfall, according to the premier.

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 kilometers 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 neighboring 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.

His organization wants the province to be declared a disaster zone so that it can benefit from special funds and fresh water from reservoirs upstream.

"The province is supposed to get 75 cubic meters of water per second, but only 59 cubic meters per second really comes in" with provinces upstream taking water for agriculture, he said.

More fresh water would repel the salt water back towards the Gulf.

Fish farmer Jassem 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.

On the edge of nearby ponds, hundreds of dead fish rot on sun-baked earth, while others float on water drawn from the nearby Tigris.

Kazem al-Ghilani uses a device to test the water of his pond.

"The salinity is 12 milligrams per kilo of water. In normal times, it varies between 1 and 1.5 milligrams," the agricultural engineer said.

The prime minister says his government is not to blame and insists that water maintenance is the "responsibility of the provinces".

Back in the emergency room, Abdel 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.



UNRWA, a Lifeline for Palestinians amid Decades of Conflict

FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
TT

UNRWA, a Lifeline for Palestinians amid Decades of Conflict

FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)
FILE - Palestinian children who fled with their parents from their houses in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh, gather in the backyard of an UNRWA school, in Sidon, Lebanon, Sept. 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari, File)

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, whose operations in Israel were banned by the Israeli parliament on Monday, is seen by some as an "irreplaceable" humanitarian lifeline in Gaza, but as an accomplice of Hamas by others.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has for more than seven decades provided essential aid and assistance to Palestinian refugees, AFP reported.
The agency has also long been a lightening rod for harsh Israeli criticism, which has ramped up dramatically since the start of the war in Gaza, following Hamas's deadly October 7 attacks last year.
UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, has seen more than 220 of its staff killed in the war there -- even as it has faced dramatic funding cuts and calls for its dismantlement amid Israeli accusations that some of its workers took part in the October 7 attack.
Created in wake of war
UNRWA was established in December 1949 by the UN General Assembly in the wake of the first Arab-Israeli conflict following Israel's creation in May 1948.
The agency, which began its operations on May 1, 1950, was tasked with assisting some 750,000 Palestinians who had been expelled during the war.
It was supposed to be a short-term fix, but in the absence of a solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA's mandate, most recently extending it until June 30, 2026.
Millions of refugees
The number of Palestinian refugees under its charge has meanwhile ballooned to nearly six million across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.
Palestinian refugees are defined as "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict".
Their descendents also have refugee status.
Operations
UNRWA is unique among UN organizations in its direct service delivery model, and is the main provider of basic public services, including education, healthcare, and social services for registered Palestinian refugees.
It employs more than 30,000 people, mainly Palestinian refugees and a small number of international staff.
The organization counts 58 official refugee camps and runs more than 700 schools for over 540,000 students.
It also runs 141 primary healthcare facilities, with nearly seven million patient visits each year, and provides emergency food and cash assistance to some 1.8 million people.
UNRWA in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, controlled by Hamas since 2007, the humanitarian situation was already critical before the war between Israel and Hamas began last October, with more than 80 percent of the population living below the poverty line.
The territory, squeezed between Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, counts eight camps and around 1.7 million refugees, the overwhelming majority of the population of 2.4 million, according to the UN.
The situation has spiraled into catastrophe following Hamas's deadly attack inside Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel's retaliatory military offensive has killed more than 43,000 people, mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory's health ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
Two-thirds of buildings have been damaged and nearly the entire population of Gaza has been displaced, many of them multiple times, the UN says.
"In the midst of all the upheaval, UNRWA, more than ever, is indispensable. UNRWA, more than ever, is irreplaceable," UN chief Antonio Guterres has said.
UNRWA, which employs some 13,000 people in Gaza, has seen two-thirds of its facilities there damaged or destroyed.
Israeli criticism
Israel has long been harshly critical of UNRWA, alleging it is perpetuating the Palestinian refugee problem and that its schools use textbooks that promote hatred of Israel.
Since October 7, the criticism has ballooned, targeting UNRWA in Gaza especially.
In January, Israel accused a dozen of UNRWA's Gaza employees of involvement in the October 7 attack by Hamas.
A series of probes found some "neutrality related issues" at UNRWA, and determined that nine employees "may have been involved" in the October 7 attack, but found no evidence for Israel's chief allegations.
The agency, which traditionally has been funded almost exclusively through voluntary contributions from governments, was plunged into crisis as a string of nations halted their backing over Israel's allegations.
Most donors have since resumed funding.
The barrage of accusations has meanwhile continued, with Israel alleging UNRWA employs "hundreds of Hamas members and even military wing operatives" in Gaza.
Despite objections from the United States and warnings from the UN Security Council, Israeli lawmakers on Monday overwhelmingly passed a bill banning UNRWA from working in Israel and occupied east Jerusalem.