Poisonous snakes emerge from fields and slither into homes in Iraq,

threatening people and claiming lives. In neighboring Iran, crocodiles

previously known for their ‘blissful’ nature are attacking the same
people with whom they have peacefully co-existed for as long as any-
one can remember.

118,000 are sickened and hospitalized by contaminated water in

Basra, Iraq (in 2018). Large protests over water and electricity claim
20 lives. Water protests roil Iraq’s Kurdistan in August 2021.

In Iran’s Khuzestan and Aligudarz Provinces, at least 3 people are

killed in July 2021 in weeks-long violent protests over water scarcity.

In Turkey, record low rainfall leads to warnings in January 2021 that

Istanbul’s water supply is in imminent danger of running dry, while,
in May, Turkish farmers take to the streets, blocking them with trac-
tors to protest a water shortage which had left their crops shriveled
and their animals without fodder.

Across the region, people abandon farms and migrate, stressing local
metropolitan areas, losing lives to international migration and inflam-
ing political instability.

This is not the scenario of a horror film but the real life consequences
of climate change, of warming temperatures that are threatening all
living creatures and exacerbating the competition for life’s most vital
resource: Water.

No country is spared and natural resources - rivers, snow melt etc -

know no national boundaries. But ultimately, each country does what
is best for themselves — regardless of its impact on neighbors.

Iraq is one of the world’s most water stressed countries, ranked 5th in
vulnerability to water and food availability and extreme temperatures
in the UN Environment Programs 2019 Global Environmental Out-
look report. Temperatures have risen by at least .7 degrees celsius
over the past century; extreme heat events are happening more fre-
quently. The World Bank estimates temperatures will rise 2c by 2050
while the average annual rainfall will decrease by 9%. President
Barham Salih, in an Oct 31 Op ed in the FT, noted that desertification
affects 39% of Iraq and ‘increased salinization threatens agriculture on
54% of our land.’

UNICEF reported in August 2021 that 60% of children in Iraq lack ac-
cess to clean water while half of schools have no water at all. With
Iraq’s population of 40 million expected to double to 80 million by
2050, demographic growth will exponentially worsen the situation.
Meanwhile, dams in neighboring Turkey and Iran choke Iraq’s famed
rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, where civilization itself was cradled
in the heart of what was once known as the Fertile Crescent.

In October, we embarked on a journey from Iraq’s southernmost

point, traveling from the fishing community of Al-Faw at the Shatt Al
Arab estuary on the Persian Gulf up to the Iranian border in Kurdistan
in the country’s north, exploring the impact of climate change and wa-
ter scarcity along the way on those most directly affected. It was a
route of despair, as people abandoned desiccated farms for lives on the
edges of unwelcoming cities in Iraq – or -- beyond. It was a route of
anger and suppurating rage - at Turkey and Iran, whose dams finished
off the few farms climate change had not yet entirely defeated - and at
a government unable to force Turkey and Iran to open the taps. It was
a route of crisis, with Iraq expected to run out of useable water by
2025.

‘Wars about water have already started. The west is fighting Iraq over
oil. Iraq is fighting for its survival, ‘ Anwer Nathar, geologist, Basra.

Mesopotamia, or the Land between the Two Rivers

The Shatt Al Arab river – ‘The River of the Arabs – begins in bibli-
cal paradise, formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates
rivers at Al Qurna, where Adam took the forbidden fruit from Eve and
the famed Garden of Eden thrived on its waters - emptying some 200
kilometers south into the Persian Gulf soon after Iran’s Karun river
joins the flow. It has been an artery of life for millennia, relied on for
water for people, animals, agriculture and fish over its entire length,
feeding the once fertile lands and bringing nutrients crucial to marine
life in the delicate ecosystem of the Persian Gulf.

But today it is a very different story.

Today, the level of water in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, both of
which start in Turkey, is dangerously low, depleted by much as 50%
by the prolonged drought and elevated temperatures of climate change
— and— by the dams upstream in Turkey and Iran. The decreased
level of freshwater has resulted in seawater intrusion as far as 80km
upstream, drastically increasing the salinity of the river, ruining water
supplies, agriculture - and - fish, in both river and sea – and threaten-
ing the critical ecosystem on which whole Persian Gulf itself depends.

..

Al Faw

The sun has just risen over the estuary where the Shatt al Arab river
empties into the Persian Gulf. Fishermen are unloading the morning’s
catch from a half dozen pangas. Adjacent, a row of large, rust en-
crusted dhows sit tethered to the muddy, rubbish strewn shore.

Abu Baneen Al-Miaahi, 43, surveys his morning’s catch. Small blue
crabs fill the boat’s hold; silver fish with gulping mouths half fill half
a dozen colored plastic laundry baskets sitting on the deck.

‘Now there are so few fish, a lot fewer than before, ‘ he sighs. ‘Be-
cause the river has gotten smaller, the water in the river is less and the
sea gets buried little by little. ‘
Grabbing a basket, he hoists it onto his shoulder and surefooted, nego-
tiates the narrow wooden plank onto the muddy shore.

Al Faw, once dubbed the Ma’Al-Sabr – the Waters of Enduring - is

dying.

25, 000 fishermen used to live here with their families. Now, there
are only 7,000, according to Badran al-Tamimi, 73, the head of the
fishermen's union in Al-Faw. ‘Before we had 1600 large fishing boats
and 2800 small fishing boats but now there are only 180 large and 750
small fishing boats. ‘

He gestures at the boats lining the shore.

‘When I was younger, fishermen used to live a very good life, ’ he

says, sadly, shaking his head , ‘ But those who have left fishing are
not doing well either. They are cleaning streets.’

Siba

Once upon a time, not so long ago, people would chuckle and boast
that Iraq had more date palm trees than people — indeed, so many
trees and farms, it was said the country looked ‘black’. Siba, some 65
kilometers south of Basra, accounted for a good deal of the descrip-
tion. Renowned for the fertility of its alluvial soil, its abundant water
and its natural resources (oil), it was once a thriving, comfortable
community. So richly endowed was Siba that it rebounded from the
devastation of the Iran-Iraq war, which was fought in the area. But
that was then, when, before the war, Iraq had 30 million date trees - 13
million more than today. That was before the level of the Shatt Al-
Arab River plunged, seawater turned it saline, temperatures rose to an
unbearable 50+c in summer and the winter rainfall ceased its once re-
liable pattern.

That was before today, when the bleak, deserted, sunbaked landscape
challenges you to believe it was ever not thus.
Abdullah, 32, climbs out of his skiff and ties it to the bank of the canal
leading to the Shatt Al Arab River. He carries a cooler with a dozen
small fish lying in brown water and puts it down in the shade by the
house on his father’s farm, land which had been in the family for gen-
erations, passed down from fathers to sons.

The family’s farm is one of the few still being worked in Siba. Ironi-
cally, the fact there are so few farms left here works to the family’s
advantage, enabling them to sell at a local market with little competi-
tion. Even so, it is nothing like before when they lived comfortably off
the farm’s revenue. Now, they struggle to make ends meet.

‘The problems really started between 2009-2012, when the droughts

began and the salt water started rolling in, ‘ Abdullah explains, ‘ Be-
fore then, we used to even be able to drink the river water . Now we
have to buy it.’

A family of ducks waddles across the dirt path by the house - a tod-
dler, shuffling in two different colored adult sized plastic flip flops,
close on its heels.

‘And the river level has really gone down in the past 5 years, ‘ he con-
tinues angrily, ‘ Iran and Turkey are closing down on us and not giv-
ing us water.‘

Abdullah’s father, Abu Jalar, has joined us.

‘And the heat now is just too much , ‘ he adds, ‘It goes to 60c in the
summer. Before it wasn’t anything like that. There is no rain. Last
year it rained twice. When I was young, it used to rain all winter, day
after day… ‘

It has spoiled the famed dates. No longer fit for human consumption,
they are fed to the animals. It has killed the fruit trees which used to
grow here in abundance — pomegranates, bananas, apricots, figs; they
have now swapped to vegetables. ‘Heat and salt water are why noth-
ing is growing here,’ Abu Jalar grimaces.

The family is continuing to farm out of desperation: the land and the
river are their only resources. ‘It’s our only chance to make a living.
We are forced to do it. But there is no future in it. I can’t force my
children to do this, ‘ he says sadly, his voice trailing off.

We turn off a dirt road lined with palm trees, as Abu Jalar takes us to
see his crops. A chest high tangle of vines sprawls under an irrigation
system of pipes pierced with tiny holes which drip water onto the
plants ; opposite, young plants are sprouting from three neat lines of
mounded earth, pipes snaking in between. Presiding over all is a large
red water tank.

Abu Jalar bends over to inspect the new growth. Straightening up, he
sighs.

‘People get depressed and their morale is crushed. My neighbor asks

me why should I farm? For whom? People are getting sick and de-
pressed. Some are having mental breakdowns. Someone in Zubayr
even killed themselves. ‘

**

Not far from Abu Jalar’s farm in Siba, Nabil Aboud, 44, has called it
quits. He had left the farm which had been in his family for genera-
tions - ‘forever’ - relocating his wife and two children to a rented
house and taking a job as a security guard at the oil facility. He comes
here sometimes, unable to let it go.

Rising temperatures and infrequent rainfall - drought punctuated with

an occasional flood that drowned plants - had turned the environment
into an adversary but it was the snakes coming into the house, ven-
omous snakes with triangular shaped heads, that finally forced his
hand. After two attacked him in the house, he realized they couldn’t
stay there. After all, two people had already been killed by snakes in
their homes in Siba: 55-year-old Talib Bedran and 60-something Ma-
tra Muhamed. Matra had been moving bricks when the snake bit her
on the finger. Her attempt to remove the toxin failed and she died in
hospital.

The snakes had started appearing in 2012, driven by thirst. They

started coming at the same time the water in the river started to get
salinated, searching for fresh water, competing with humans for the
increasingly rare resource. Since that time, they had been appearing
more and more frequently, venturing into homes and becoming more
aggressive as time went on. With so many places now deserted and
so little water about, they are everywhere.

‘The water problem destroyed everything, ‘ Nabil says, ‘Saltwater

and snakes made us finally leave .’

‘We used to drink water from the river but since the dam in Iran we
can’t do that anymore. Instead of flowing into the Shatt Al Arab, as it
used to, the water now flows back to Iran. It makes a huge difference .
The Karun used to push away the salts and now nothing does,’ he ex-
plains, ‘And then Turkey closed the water with the Iliusu dam 2 years
ago. Due to what Turkey did, it got even worse and finally we
couldn’t take it anymore.’

‘Our lands and our farms got ruined because of Turkey and Iran, ‘
Nabil stresses.

A pot of plastic flowers hangs on the wall in the deserted house. A

drawing of a Koran over a doorway. A curtain with cheerful idyllic
palm fringed beach scene. Clues to the lives once happily lived here.
Out back, palm trees, many just dead stumps, mimic the refinery
chimneys with their flickering flames beyond. This is where Nabil’s
father was born and died. When his own sons were born, Nabil
dreamed of the day they would inherit it and, in turn, pass it on to their
sons. That was when it was so beautiful here that people came from all
around to ask permission to picnic on their land.
Now, he is no longer his own boss, working freely and being free on
his own land. It is a change he has found devastating. ‘It really upsets
me. I just want to give up.’

Surveying his land, with its stunted trees, he sighs.

‘I am very hurt. You see your palm trees dying and your land is dy-
ing. It’s the end of the line for our family. It’s ended.’

***

Basra

Across Iraq, temperatures have risen by at least .7 degrees over the

past 100 years.

30 years ago, explains Professor Shukri Al Hassen, environmental ex-

pert at the University of Iraq, temperatures would reach 50c on one or
two summer days. Now, the temperature stays at a scorching 50c for
weeks on end.

Drought was also previously an infrequent event. But since the 90’s
and early 2000’s, drought waves have doubled 6 times, he explains.
Rainfall used to average 160mm/year. Now it is only 60-70mm. The
2020-2021 rainy season was the second driest in 40 years.

‘’ Two districts, one town and several other large areas have been re-
moved from the classification of agricultural land. 35 fish farms have
closed. Now, only 7% are operating and the other 93% closed because
of a lack of water. Farmers have left their farms and animals, ‘ says
Hadi Hussein Quasi, 53, Basra’s Manager of Agriculture, sitting at his
desk in his Basra office, behind 4 neat piles of documents, an Iraqi
flag on the wall behind.

‘These areas were full of orchards and gardens and farms — and they
are now all out of commission,’ he acknowledges, destroyed by ex-
treme heat, water scarcity and the salinity of both water and soil.

The farm closures have cost the agricultural sector of the economy
30%, he estimates, while those who have been forced to abandon
farms have found their standard of living t plummet.

In an October 2021 op -ed for the Financial Times, Iraq’s President

Barham Salih emphasized the gravity of the long-term threat of cli-
mate change to the county, noting, “Desertification affects 39 percent
of Iraq’s territory and increased salinization threatens agriculture on
54 percent of our land.”

According to the World Bank, it will only get worse, with tempera-
tures in Iraq expected to rise by 2 C by 2050, and rainfall to decrease
9%.

The oil industry, ubiquitous in this part of Iraq, uses 5 million barrels
of water per day exacerbates the crisis, as do the dams: the Iliusu in
Turkey and the Karun River diversion in Iran.

‘The dams are one of the prime reasons for the water problems in Iraq,
‘ Professor Shukri says from his Basra office.

‘We live in a catastrophe due to the dams in both countries, ‘ he con-

tinues emphatically, ‘All these elements’ — climate, oil installations
and the dams - ‘unite to create an environmental crisis. ‘

The consequences cascade : Less water in the river concentrates pol-

lution and salt. The
118,000 people who were hospitalized in 2018 had been poisoned by
water that had actually been purified.

Abu Abdullah Haider Sami, 39, the station operator of a water purifi-
cation plant on the Shatt Al Arab River in Basra, explained that at the
time, they had been using standard river water filters, switching them
out every month due to the extreme levels of salt and waste they had
to deal with. Clearly, it wasn’t enough. ‘They were useless, ‘ he
shrugs. After the poisoning, they switched to using heavy duty sea fil-
ters. But as the water quality continued to deteriorate and the level of
salt continued to increase, they installed a second set of sea filters.
Now the water is run through both sets of filters, thoroughly purifying
it twice.

The doubled time and equipment have added to the cost. ‘Right now
salt levels reach such insane levels that a ton of purified water which
used to cost $1.50 when salt levels were 1000ppm or below, now with
salt levels of 15,000ppm, costs $25 a ton, due to the extra purification,
‘ says Anwer Nathar, 50, geologist and owner of the purification facil-
ity. In the summer of 2019, the level went up to an even more stagger-
ing 18,500ppm, pointing at the salt heavily encrusting the valves
where the water circulates through the purification process.

‘The long term solution is obvious. We open the water coming from
Turkey and Iran. ‘

Iraq should be able to force Turkey and Iran into releasing enough
water, he says: The problem is political.

“Iraq is strong - but, ‘ he snorts derisively, ‘ It’s like it took anesthe-

sia. Like Mike Tyson is drugged and is fighting a rookie and the
rookie will win.”

If not resolved, the water scarcity and climate change will cause local
military conflict in the south of Iraq, he warns.
 ‘Wars about water have already started. The west is fighting Iraq
over oil . Iraq is fighting for its survival.’

**

Nahran Omar

The road heading north out of Basra closely parallels the Shatt al Arab
river. The river once fed the lush farms and palm trees that stretched
to the horizon here but today it is a vast, monochromatic wasteland,
punctuated only by the flame belching smokestacks of oil refineries.

Fifty kilometers north of Basra, the village of Nahran Omar nestles at

the nexus of the triad of elements comprising Iraq’s environmental cri-
sis — climate, oil installations and the dams.

As the sustained droughts and sweltering temperatures of climate

change and the dams in Turkey and Iran crippled the farms which had
previously thrived, oil installations, bearing down at a proximity
which has cast the area in the permanent flickering golden light, have
added to the problems, spewing toxins into the air, killing crops and
causing rates of disease in the area to skyrocket. In 2003, there was
only 1 flare. Now there are more than 5. The increase in diseases has
grown in tandem with the oil installations.

Mayor Bashir Al Jabiry, 55, sits cross legged on the red patterned car-
pet in the living room of the house he has lived in for two decades and
spreads out a 3 inch thick sheaf of medical reports and documentation
detailing the rise of diseases in the area on the rug in front of him,
loosely organizing them into piles. ‘These are medical reports of dif-
ferent kinds of cancers and skin diseases, ‘ he says gesturing at the
piles, ‘ These are medical reports for people who have died through
cancerous diseases and who are cancer patients here now. ‘

‘And these, ‘ he says sadly, pointing to another stack, ‘Are reports of

the deceased. ‘
By Mayor Jabiry’s accounting, 54 residents have died of cancer in the
last 6 years, while 33 are currently ill with cancer. In this village of
1500, that amounts to 6% of the population.

‘In this small area of around 150 houses,’ he adds, ‘One third have
diseases — diseases of various kinds. Right now, there are more than
100 cases and around 40 are severe cases.’

Nearby, Saddiq Tahar, 51, is surveying his small date grove as the sun
sets. The trees flicker gold as the flares of the refinery smokestacks
hovering just beyond his garden wall cast ghostlike shadows. Saddiq
no longer cultivates most of his land, nor raises any livestock- this
grove is all that is left, the rest lost to the ravages of pollution, the heat
of the flares, water scarcity and climate change. There is too much
salt in the water for the dates to survive, he explains, and, pointing to
grey specks on the fronds, the oil drops kill the dates. His income has
dropped to a fraction of what it had been.

Worst of all, however, was the loss of his son, Jaffa, who died from
leukemia when he was only 16, a junior in high school with a promis-
ing life ahead of him.

The mayor has filed innumerable complaints and complied innumer-

able health and environmental reports attesting to the toxicity of the
environment, agitating for change and compensation. He had a small
victory when 90 people, chosen, he explains, ‘at random’, were given
500k dinars ‘as assistance not compensation by the South Oil Com-
pany, an Iraqi company based in Basra. Assistance not compensation,
‘ he emphasizes, ‘Compensation would be a concession of guilt.’

500k dinars would not even cover a doctor’s appointment, he points

out.

But nothing has been done to compensate for the decimation of the
once vibrant community. ‘
‘Of course, it makes me angry. Everyone here is angry. ‘
‘Farming is almost eliminated. The emissions from the oil fields rain
oil drops on people and on crops, killing the crops. It is like it is rain-
ing but with oil when the emissions get very thick, ‘ he says, his voice
thick with emotion, ‘Some days because the emissions are so thick
you feel as if there is no oxygen.’’

‘Life here has almost disappeared.’

Al Hawizeh Marshes

The contrails of belching smokestacks follow us as we travel north, a

dirty smudge hanging low in the blue sky. Beyond Al Qurna, we turn
off and head east towards the Iranian border and the Al Hawizeh
Marshes which straddle the Iraq and Iranian borders. We pass a small
factory where people shape the bone dry, umber colored earth into
bricks, and an occasional mud home whose primitive construction
contrasts with the omnipresent flaring smokestacks of the oil refiner-
ies in the distance. Now and then, we pass through a small, deserted,
dusty village, plastered with pictures of martyrs.

This once fertile land was a cradle of civilization in ancient

Mesopotamia. The Marsh Arabs have lived here since that time, fish-
ing and raising water buffalo.

Myths and mystery abound about the Al Hawizeh marshes. Sa-

lomon’s treasure is believed to be buried here, protected by a ‘djinn’ -
an invisible spirit inhabiting the earth -- in the Tel-e-Fil, a hill where
lights are said to inexplicably appear at night, and where venturing too
close makes a person dizzy.

But now, both the land, and its ancient peoples are under threat of dis-
appearing.
Over the past 8 years, the water level has dropped dramatically from 2
meters to a mere 17 cm in some places, explains economics professor
Ahmed Saleh Na’ma, 50, pointing to where narrow, low marsh boats
sit beached on a tangle of mud encrusted reeds on the dry, cracked,
shore - fully 200 meters from the water’s edge. We watch as a boat
disappears behind a curtain of reeds in the distance.

Only a few years ago, he explains, the water came up not just to where
the boats lie beached but a full 100 meters further up the gently slop-
ing shore.

Ghalib Ammon, 50, has lived here his whole life, fishing and raising
water buffalo, just as his family has done for centuries. He survived
the Iran /Iraq war; he survived Saddam’s draining of the swamp; he
survived being shot by Daesh as he fought with Hashd Al Sha’abi
militia. But he doesn’t see how he can survive here anymore. There’s
no water.

‘I am about to leave along with everyone else,' he says sadly. Adjust-

ing the black and white patterned kefiyah wrapped around his head, he
turns and gestures at the pools of water below set within a reed
rimmed dry expanse of land. A handful of water buffalo are lazily
making their way across. The water used to come up to where we are
standing, he explains. Now the water is 4 meters below.

‘Every summer is hotter than the one before and there is not nearly as
much rain as before, ‘ he says sadly, pausing to watch as a pickup
truck filled with reeds passes by, a young girl dressed in a full abayah
sitting atop.

The Iliusu dam, Ghalib says, has made the water scarcity even worse,
unsurvivable, he says. Not since Saddam drained the marshes has it
been dried out as it is now.

‘The lack of water is destroying agriculture, fishing - and when the

water buffalo have water, they produce 30 liters of milk. Without wa-
ter, it’s only 10. It’s not just me - everyone is leaving for the same
reason. ‘ He sighs sadly, ‘ If this year doesn’t get any more rain, I
doubt anyone will be here next year.’ His voice trails off….

Najaf

North of Nassirya, the clumps and patches of green become more nu-
merous, interspersed between areas of pure desert, tawnier in tone
than further south , where it has an unattractive grey cast . A Beduoin
leads a herd of skinny camels. They have walked all the way from
Basra, where they normally live, in a search for water, I am told.

Natural small depressions in the sand with remnants of water are en-
circled by wide ribbons of dried salt. A shallow narrow canyon briefly
splits the desert to east, parallel to the road. The striated layers of earth
seem to betray a distant past when water coursed through.

The Hafar river, a tributary of the Euphrates, branches off the road to
the east as we approach Diwaniyah. Crossing the Shatt al Shami - an-
other tributary of the Euphrates, fields of wheat spread out to the east.

‘Iraq has a lot of water, ‘ the driver remarks dryly, ‘Only Iraq doesn’t
get to benefit from it. ‘

Those displaced, forced to leave their farms, come to cities like Najaf,
leaving behind everything they have ever known and land which has
been in families for centuries, to settle in urban areas - usually squat-
ting on the fringes - where, after lifetimes of working for themselves,
they must find work working for others. It is a huge rupture, an incal-
culable loss of income, culture and morale for which they are ill-
equipped.

‘Now we see that agricultural land is getting less and less due to low
levels of water reaching farmers because of climate change and the de-
crease in water releases from Turkey, ‘ explains Adam Hamid Nassar,
Najaf’s Manager of the Environment, ‘ The whole direction is against
farming .’
‘It has led to the migration of peasants to the cities. ‘

This translates to more population, more needs and more problems, he

observes. The infrastructure is stressed; the electricity supply can’t
cope with the extra demand. Schools, built to accommodate smaller
student bodies, lack the capacity for the numbers of additional chil-
dren arriving, displaced by climate change from farms. Children end
up sitting on floors; teachers are forced to deal with unwieldy class
sizes that degrade the quality of education, angering parents.

Migrants, who often end up working low paid jobs in cemeteries or

‘hammans’ (public baths), are blamed for crime, accused of stealing
electricity and water and the areas where they live are seen as havens
for gangs. There are frequent complaints from nearby neighborhoods.
Tensions are on the boil.

‘An underclass is growing from those leaving farms due to environ-

mental problems, ‘ Mr. Nassar warns.

It is only going to get worse.

Iraq is losing roughly a staggering 250 sq kilometres of arable land -

or 100,000 Iraq donums - to desertification every year, according to a
June 2021 report by Iraq’s Parliamentary Committee for Agriculture,
Water and Marshland. Inevitably, this will create ever more environ-
mental migrants and instability. In October 2021, Iraq’s agriculture
ministry announced that the crop planting area for 2021-2022 would
be reduced 50% due to water shortage.

‘We are between great drought and total collapse and are mostly re-
liant on rainwater. If there is no rain there is no agriculture, ‘ says
Haider Muhammed Saleh , 51 , Chief engineer of urban environment
for Najaf

He doesn’t mince his words.

’Soon Iraq will hit the phase we call the ‘Juhid al Mai, ‘ he says ,
bluntly.

The ‘Juhid Al Mai ‘- which translates literally as ‘water efforts’ - is

the catastrophic point at which Iraq will run out of useful water, the
tipping point, where the little remaining water becomes toxic, contam-
inated by the wastage and sewage disposed of in rivers and by sky-
rocketing salinity : the lower the water , the higher the contamination.

‘We expect the Juhid Al Mai to come in 2025, ‘ he says, pausing to

allow the impact of his words to settle, ’2025.’

Turkey’s dams and hydroelectric facilities on the Tigris and Euphrates

rivers were already estimated to have reduced water in Iraq by 80%
since 1975 - even before the Iliusu dam, which sits on the Tigris River
in southern Turkey some 65k’s above the Iraqi border, was filled in
2019. The Iliusu has reduced the water level of the Tigris River in
Iraq from its pre Iliusu flow of roughly 600 cubic meters per second to
around 300-320m/second, according to Ramadan Hamza, a senior ex-
pert on water strategy and policy at the University of Dohuk . It is
nothing short of catastrophic, dramatically compounding the impact of
climate change. Even the 300-320m/second is not a sure thing: the tap
is controlled by Turkey.

Releasing 500 cu meters/second, as Iraq has asked, would make the

difference between survival and disaster. ‘If they gave us 500 cu/sec
it is not enough but, ‘ Mr Saleh acknowledges , ‘ It would be enough
to survive.’

But Turkey isn’t releasing that amount and with 22 more dams
planned on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers as part of Turkey’s ambi-
tious Southeastern Anatolia Dam Project, the problem is only going to
get worse.
‘A water war is expected, ‘ he warns, ‘Our fate seems to be drought.
It is a disaster and that is the situation now.’

‘Iraq might not be capable of waging war against Turkey - Turkey has
more power and alliances - but if Iraq had a wise government, they
could use the oil file to apply pressure - to create economic pressure
on Turkey. When you have diplomatic problems, war is the last re-
sort.’

Newly elected winning parliamentarian Hadi Hassan al-Salami, who

ran as an Independent in Iraq’s 2021 parliamentary elections is angry.

‘The national development plan 2018-2021 and Ministry reports all

speak of the water pollution, the destruction of the environment and
the infrastructure of the public services including water services, ‘ he
thunders, ‘ And they all remain ink on paper !’

‘International agreements reached on water issues with Turkey and

Syria! They are also just ink on paper — all of them, all ink on paper,
nothing more!’

He is determined that the new Parliament, with the unprecedented

winning numbers of independent candidates, will have the mettle to
tackle the situation.

‘We as winning parliament winners we will go to Turkey and Iran and

Syria and demand they comply with international agreement and if
they don’t, we have measures. These countries all benefit from Iraq
and we have measures to take in order to serve the interests of the peo-
ple who elected us.’

He leaves unspecified what the measures might be. Instead, he under-

scores the importance of resolving the situation with a line from a
Quranic verse.

‘We made from water every living thing, ‘ he intones gently.

Kufa

The river is wide, idyllic, the far side thick with palm trees. 11-year-
old Muktada Abbas Fadey cycles over to the riverside and dismounts,
dropping his cycle to the ground on the top of the steep bank where a
tangle of reeds descends to the water roughly 4 meters below.

‘Pe-ew’, Muktada says, wrinkling up his nose at the foul smell coming
from the river, the Shatt Al Kufa, a tributary of the Euphrates. ‘And it
is even worse at night,’ he says, gesturing to the two pipes coming
from under the road, which are spilling thick green opaque water into
the river - water contaminated with all manner of untreated waste from
Kufa and nearby Najaf. All the waste from the area’s hospitals enters
the river here, as does the chemical laden water used to wash the mil-
lions of bodies put to rest in the world’s largest cemetery in Najaf.

The consequences of such heavy contamination are evident: in crops

— thousands of donums of land can’t be planted because of pollution-
in animals, who, when slaughtered, are found to have tumors that ren-
der the meat inedible - and in humans.

Cancer in the area is rife and has been on an upward trend over the
past 10 years, according to Dr. Haider el Shibli, manager of the tumor
center in Najaf, a trend which, he notes, has kept pace with the escala-
tion of environmental degradation. Ahmed Hussein Al Ghali, 45,
Ambassador of Childhood Diseases has observed the same pattern,
witnessing an increase in cancers attributed to environmental causes,
something Abu Zain Al Abueen Hassan Hakim, 40, has experienced
first-hand.

He has thyroid cancer. His mother has brain cancer. His sister has
bowel cancer.
‘Now in Kufa there isn’t a house that doesn’t have cancer in it, ‘ he
sighs.

When Abu Zain Al Abueen Hassan Hakim became ill 6 years ago, the
environmental problem he had long been aware of became personal.
He stopped making videos on public services and became an activist,
putting all his efforts into exposing corruption and demanding sewer
and water projects - thus far, in vain.

It is a dangerous business.

‘I am sitting with a pistol beside me to protect me, ‘ he admits, sitting

in his voluminous living room in Kufa, its windows double hung with
2 layers of heavy swag drapes, color coordinated to the couches encir-
cling the room.

‘You expose corruption to save people’s lives. It’s a humanitarian

thing to do. But you are endangering your own lives. We know this
road of activism ends in death, ‘ he says, reeling off the names of ac-
tivists who have been assassinated recently.

**

As we walk through the majestic remains of the ancient city of Baby-

lon, Dr Ahmed Aziz Salman points out that the problem with water is
not new. However, he notes, environmental changes which evolved
over millennia for the Sumerians, have today taken less than 40 years
- and the pace is accelerating. A small island newly formed in the
middle of the depleted Tigris River in the center of Baghdad is a
sobering reminder.

Sulamaniyah
800 km north of Basra - 265 km north of Baghdad as the bird flies -
the bald ochre hills of Iraq’s Kurdistan roll gently east from Sul-
maniyah, an occasional deserted farmhouse or green speck of a tree
punctuating the monochrome. The hills tighten and close in the road
climbs until we arrive at the Iraq side of the Iranian border. Below,
nestled in-between steep cliffs, the Sirwan River carves a narrow path
as it travels from Iran into Iraq.

Mossin Aziz (49) and Atatam Hamarashi, 42, man the lonely border
post. Mossin points at the striations on the sides of the cliffs below,
where the water level honed over centuries is scribed, but today, the
water is far below and, at the base of the hill where the riverbed opens
on the Iraq side, instead of spilling into the rocky bottomed widened
river bed , as it should, it flows shallowly in a narrow path, leaving
water level markers inserted amongst stones smoothed over centuries
by a rushing river many meters from the water’s edge.

Mossim is a farmer, from a village near Darbyhan. He had only taken

job at the border post when he could no longer support his family on
farming. First, he explains, when droughts started becoming more fre-
quent and prolonged, he adapted by changing crops, reducing his live-
stock and tightening his belt. But when Iran opened the Daryan Dam
on the Sirwan river and cut the water downstream into Iraq, it was the
final blow: there was no longer enough water to survive.

Their loss has been Iran’s gain. It is cheaper now to buy agricultural
products from Iran than it is to produce them.

It is decimating the area. 50% of agricultural land has been lost.

There are 300 houses in Mossin’s village. Now, all but a handful are
empty.

‘Water is a life source, ‘ Mossin says sadly, ‘When they cut the water
they cut our life.’
Halabja

‘Tomatoes, cucumber, beans, figs and okra, that’s all that we sell now
that comes from Iraq, ‘ Media , 36, says as she fills a bag of
pomegranates for customer Backtair Horramy at her Halabja fruit and
vegetable shop. ‘The rest we get from Iran. And if the drought contin-
ues like this, we will lose everything — all the farms. ‘

Horramy grew up in Halabja. He survived the 1998 chemical attack

but he couldn’t survive the water scarcity. After the Daryan dam was
built, he could no longer make ends meet. Reluctantly, he abandoned
his farm and relocated to Sulamaniyah, a city of 750,000 about 80 km
northwest of here.

But he can’t quite let go of a place which is in his blood. He has come
today, as he does periodically, for the memories.

Near Halabja

A dozen troughs sit on the side of a dry field, a pipe snaking from
them down through a gulley and into thick green water which sits at
the bottom of a deep hole. This was once a fertile area, where any-
thing would grow and where tobacco and rice were popular, lucrative
crops. Now those who are still trying to eke out a living from their
farms have switched to wheat and barley, crops which require less wa-
ter. Livestock and acreage have been sold to make ends meet.

‘The water in this well used to be 6 meters high - it used to come

nearly to the road, ‘ Kewan Akram , 28, says scowling in frustration as
he adjusts the pipe , trying to coax some water out of the hole and into
the troughs. ‘ But since Iran finished the dam , it is nearly completely
dry. ‘

Sarkwat Rashid, 39, Kewan’s colleague, is looking on in despair, as if

willing the water to reach the troughs.
Kewan is from nearby Zardahall village, where, he explains, there is
no water at all anymore.

‘The river was a source of water but slowly, slowly there was climate
change, and then Iran started stealing the water. We have been de-
stroyed, ‘ he fumes, ‘We lost our animals , we lost our farm - all be-
cause of the water shortage. We are devastated. ‘

The loss of the ancestral farm sent Kewan’s father spiraling into a
deep depression, from which he has not recovered. Kewan now works
as a day laborer.

‘One more year of drought, it will be desert here, ‘ Sarkwat explodes,

‘ The Iranian government suck your blood — but our government is
worse , taxing us a lot but providing no services !‘

Imami Zamen

Upturned boats sit on lizard like scales of dried mud which stretch 500
meters to a narrow strand of the river Sirwan, the river relied on in
these parts; the river curtailed by Iran’s Daryan Dam. Nabil Musa is
a Kurdish environmental activist who has been coming here for years.
He is stunned. He’s never seen the water this low before.

The nearby town of Imami Zaman depends on the Sirwan river for
water but when the river is low, the water in wells dries up and with a
prolonged drought, there is no hope even of rainwater. The water
scarcity has driven most of the 70 families in the village to leave. Im-
migration is on the minds of everyone else.

A basket of Barbie dolls sits in a corner of an empty house, a crum-

pled old photo of 7 young boys is tacked to the wall: signs of the
Laten family’s once happy lives before their departure a month ear-
lier. Safi Laten, 22, has come back now to check on the house.
‘There is no way to survive here anymore, ‘ he shrugs. Immigration is
the answer, he says.

Smugglers come through here frequently. The previous day 57 peo-

ple had left for Belorussia from a nearby village.

Azad Khalid Muhammed, 62, and wife Famia, 51, have parked their
SUV roadside and are surveying the parched fields extending to the
horizon. Azad - a supervisor of language teaching here before the
school closed - and Famia raised 13 children here. Nine of their chil-
dren have already gone abroad and now they are contemplating send-
ing the remaining four.

‘The water here has disappeared now, ‘ Azad explains, ‘ There’s none
anymore. None for animals, vegetable farms, fruits or fishing. We lost
all of them. That is why everyone is migrating.’

The smuggler has told Azad and Famia that for USA $3500 each, he
could put them on a plane bound for Minsk within a few days.

‘It’s like a flood of people. Only the poor people and very, very rich
stay behind,’ Famia says sorrowfully, ‘We’ve lost our culture and our
morale. It’s displacing everyone…’

Hazha Khadra, 30, is one of the village’s few remaining residents.

She fills a trough with water from a hose for her cows as her small
daughter runs behind giggling. With no water from the river and with
drought killing crops for fodder, the money they spend on water and
animal feed costs more than they can earn.

‘We cannot continue like this, ‘she sighs, ‘We will have to leave too. ‘

She stares out over the hills.

‘This land has been in my husband’s family for years.’ She falls
briefly silent. ‘He will be devastated to leave but we don’t have a
choice.’
‘But if Iran opened the dam we could stay. All the water would return
and the wetlands would come back to life. We are furious that Iran
controls our lives with the tap. And we have no power to change it.’

Darbandikan Dam

The Sirwan river runs on the border between Iraq and Iran before it
turns decisively into Iraq, spilling into the picaresque Darbandikan
Lake which, at its southern tip, brings water to the Darbandikan Dam.

The Darbandikan Dam was built in 1956-1961 to supply hydroelectric

power, irrigation and flood control to the region. Today, however, the
water level is catastrophically low, a level unprecedented in its 65-
year history and its capacity to function is crippled.
For the first time since it was built, the roof line of the factory gravel
mine used when constructing the dam sticks out above the water level
and a bone dry rocky bottom leads into a spillway, far below the level
of the hatches through which it needs to flow.

Arkan Muhammed, 57, has been working a driver and security guard
at the dam for 18 years. ‘We were ok until Iran completed the dam 3
years ago. They have really destroyed us. They can release the water
but they don’t.‘

The water is 9 meters lower than last year and it is dropping at 8cm a
day, he explains.

‘Water is a natural resource - a natural human right - of course I am

angry with Iran. Between drought and Iran, if we continue like this
we will really be in trouble. We need to pray for rain; and for Iran to
release the water. ‘
The huge windows in his office overlook the dam; a screen on the
wall displays a grid of images from the dam’s cameras. There is no
water coursing through the dam right now. Water markers run up a
dry wall, the water many meters below.

Ali Abu Kareem stands outside the yellow building housing the dam
operations at the base of the dam. Ali Abu Kareem, 53, project man-
ager and the machine operator, explains that the problem with the dam
in Iran is the fact that they have built tunnels and canals which divert
the water back into Iran, to their agriculture, instead of allowing it to
run through into Iraq as it should. ‘They are choking us. 70% of our
water comes from Iran. ‘

At this level of water, the dam cannot generate the electricity it

should, he explains. Water should run through 24 hours a day en-
abling, as designed, the dam’s 3 turbines to produce 250 megawatts of
power per turbine. Now, however, they can release only 6 hours of
water in 24 producing a mere 50 megawatts. It is not nearly enough to
supply power for Erbil, Kurdistan’s capital, as is intended. ’Electric-
ity supply has been reduced by 80%, ‘ Mr. Kareem says, pointing out
that electricity for Erbil now depends on coordinating supply with
other dams. ‘We don’t even release it now for the electricity. We re-
lease it because we don’t want the people downstream to suffer. ‘

It can get worse. If the water drops a further 4 meters, there won’t
even be enough pressure to release the water at all, choking everyone
downstream and compromising electricity in Kurdistan’s capital.

‘But forget about Iran! Of course what Iran does is dangerous — but
the biggest danger is climate change and global warming, ‘ he blurts.
‘Have a look. You can see the trees. We have a wildfire here every
year. Greenery is disappearing. This year we had hardly any rain -
there is less and less rain and it’s hotter. This year with the drought we
had high temperatures. I am praying for rain, ‘

He pauses and looks at the surrounding brown hills.

‘Water is life. When you don’t have water people will go. You don’t
have life. Even birds will migrate.’

It used to be so different. ‘When I was little, it was paradise, ‘ he

says, ‘It is just heartbreaking. ‘

Banihelan village

A narrow strand of the Sirwan River snakes below the eroded river
banks, a slash of blue amidst hills which undulate in tones of umber
until they erupt into distant mountains. An occasional eagle soars
above the parched and deserted landscape, until as we turn the corner,
a bright green field spreads out on the side of the road. Roughly a
dozen men are bent over picking the crop. Farhan Hussein, 52, pauses
to talk, a bundle of upland rice stalks in his arms. This is his farm but,
he explains, it is a shadow of what it was. ‘Now we get only two and
half tons of rice. Back in the day, we would get 100 tons. ‘

He looks out over the fields, where the men are hard at work. ‘It’s not
enough. We are just not going to be able to continue to live on the
rice,’ he says, shaking his head. Turning away, he gets back to work.

Lalihan Village

Turning off the main road, we bump over a rough stony road, heading
in the direction of the river and Lalihan village. There is a certain oth-
erworldly beauty here as layers of stones merge into layers of sand
progressively rose hued as they rise into hills beneath a bright blue
sky. It is impossible to see where anything ever could have thrived
here on the stony arid land - but it did. There was grass enough to
feed the livestock and water enough for animals, crops and the local
population alike. Farmers here lived a good life.
A tangle of green vines pokes out over the cinderblock wall surround-
ing the compound where Jalad Rostum, 53, lives with his wife, Fatima
Hamma Said and their 3 adult children. A huge man with hands like
shovels, a bushy moustache and deeply creased laugh-lines, Jalad in-
vites us in. A thicket of vibrant orange flowers blooms under the wall,
in colourful contrast to the monochrome of the hills beyond.

In the 1990’s, Jalad began to observe climatic changes. Rainfall less-

ened, droughts started becoming more common and the temperatures
increased. ‘That is when the crisis slowly began, ‘ he explains.

But when Iran built the Daryan Dam in 2009, things took a drastic
turn for the worse. With the water on the river reduced, dependency
increased on rainfall - while rainfall continued to diminish, and
drought became the norm.

‘We had to stop growing everything. Nothing grows anymore. No

rain. No water. It’s impossible, ‘ Jalad says.

Farmers are losing money right and left. With no grass, they have to
buy food for cows. With no water, they can’t feed them properly, di-
minishing their worth in the marketplace. It is a losing proposition
and one that is happening fast. 5 years ago, Jalad had 7 cows. Now
they only have two.

He has lost $5000. Some here have lost 100,000.

It is unsustainable.

‘We can’t stay here. We will be next to die, ‘ he says, ‘ When water
dies , we will be next .
One more drought one more year of drought and we are facing death’

Fatima’s face has crumpled. She is on the verge of tears.

‘It’s the most devastating thing. We have been born here and if we
have to leave, we are going to die. ‘