In Baghdad, an immense cloud of orange dust has enveloped the city, sending thousands of Iraqis to the hospital.
The dust storms come yearly, in spring and summer, but their frequency is increasing due to chronic droughts. Iraq’s environmental ministry forecasts the country will experience 300 “dusty days” each year by 2050.
This year has been particularly challenging because of the underlying coronavirus symptoms, and in some cases the damage is fatal. One April storm killed five people in Tuz Khurmatu, a city in the northern Salahaddin province.
Samir Abdul-Amir, a 42-year-old traffic policeman with asthma, bears a look of despair as he sits in the emergency room with an oxygen mask strapped to his face.This is his ninth visit to Sheikh Zayed hospital since April.
The dust particles agitate his condition, but staying indoors is impossible. “I’m having to take high doses of my medication, which is making my hair fall out,” he told the Telegraph.
The head of the emergency department, Nassar Mustafa, said that the dust presents two main health challenges. First, it suffocates those with weak respiratory systems. Second, it reduces visibility, increasing the chance of road accidents.
“We don’t have the right type of housing to deal with this weather, so dust enters our homes,” he said. “And when the man is forced to stay at home, he gets hot headed and the whole family gets upset.”
Iraq’s increasing dust storms are one symptom of a much bigger problem: a lack of water. Such a problem is contrary to Iraq’s historic reputation as part of the fertile crescent – the world’s earliest civilisations thrived on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, which provided an auspicious environment for agriculture.
But upstream damming, climate change and mismanagement mean Iraq’s land is now shrivelling up. Without water, strong winds whip up enough dust to cover an entire province.
A government report published last year warned the Tigris and Euphrates would run dry by 2040. Meanwhile, in December, President Barham Salih told the UN Global Climate Summit that salinisation from water shortages had degraded 54 per cent of the country’s agricultural land.
Damming in neighbouring countries is also posing a risk. Ninety-eight per cent of Iraq’s surface water comes from the Tigris and Euphrates, both of which flow from sources in south-east Turkey. Turkey, to the north, has been damming the rivers and their tributaries since the 1970s, while Iran, to the east, has been building similar dams.
Prof Nadhir Al-Ansari, of Luleå University of Technology, has been studying Iraq’s water resources for the past 40 years. He believes Turkey plans to use the water as a bargaining chip. The hydroelectric dams are creating far more energy than Turkey could ever use, he said, and the government will hope to trade this with Iraq for oil. The government has responded by threatening Turkey with international lawsuits, but little headway has been made.
For Prof Al-Ansari, damming and climate change do not excuse Iraqi government inaction. “As far as I can see, there is no awareness from the decision makers of the seriousness of the problem,” he said. “This is reflected in the last election. If you look at the agendas of all the parties that participated, none of them talk about water problems.”
Iraq should be testing methods of doing more with the water it does have, Prof Al-Ansari said. Its low irrigation efficiency, at 20 per cent, could be improved with existing technology like sprinklers and drip systems. Waste water could be treated with special plants and rainwater could be harvested in dams, which could even produce an excess according to Prof Al-Ansari’s models.
Some blame corruption for the country’s failure to act. Several proposals to plant vast belts of palm trees to protect cities from the dust storms were never completed. The belt around Karbala, for example, only ever reached a third of its proposed 76km length. One of the province’s former councillors said only nine of the 16 billion dinars (£8.7m) dedicated to the project ever materialised.
The lack of action is having serious health consequences for people across the country. The World Food Programme estimates around 2.4 million people in Iraq suffer acute food insecurity, with a third of the country living in poverty.
Food insecurity will only increase as drought decimates the agricultural industry, which employs a fifth of the country’s workforce. Wheat production in Iraq’s northern Nineveh governorate is expected to drop by 70 per cent, according to a collection of NGOs operating in the region, including Action Against Hunger.
A Norwegian Refugee Council team surveyed over 2,000 Iraqis last year to assess the water problem. Samah Hadid, the head of advocacy for the Middle East, said: “Farmers who rely solely on their crops and livestock for income are seeing their source of livelihood destroyed before their eyes. Children are eating less. We’ve seen displacement as well, particularly from farming communities.”
Ms Hadid believes the international community bears responsibility for a resolution. If left to degrade, immigration-vulnerable states will face challenges further down the line. “We will see further displacement,” she said. “We will continue to see mass migration. Without long term action, the consequences will be massive.”
Nabil Musa, Waterkeeper Alliance’s Iraq ambassador, grew up beside a small river in Iraq’s northern Kurdistan region in the 1980s. He learnt to swim in it, and remembers the birds that would rest in the trees along its banks. “Unfortunately, it has become like a desert,” he said. “The river is seasonal. And just a few months a year, it will appear if we’re lucky.”
Back in Sheikh Zayed hospital, Nasser Mustafa is concerned about the combination of frequent dust storms and the long-term symptoms of coronavirus. “People who’ve contracted the virus will have lasting problems,” he says. “They’ll suffer from them their entire lives.”
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