Corruption
Oil fields and war remnants raise cancer rates in Basra
Dawai Naji (45 years old) from Basra, southern Iraq, lives in a whirlwind of anxiety about his mother, who is suffering from leukemia and has been hospitalized for weeks at Al-Sadr Teaching Hospital. He fears she might join his younger sister and nephew, who both died of cancer in 2014. He believes that emissions from oil fields are the cause: “A gas flare from an oil extraction facility is only 1000 meters away from our home in the paper factory area in the Dhi Qar region north of Basra, and because of it, the residents are vulnerable to various types…
Spread the “drugs” in the Kurdistan Region… the danger of
(A.S.), a 19-year-old young man from Duhok, did not complete his middle school education. At a young age, he was drawn into the world of drugs, influenced by friends he encountered during a time when his parents were unaware of his changing path, despite their persistent but unsuccessful efforts to steer him back toward his studies. Reflecting on this chapter of his life, he gestures toward his arms, adorned with tattoos, and continues: "My street friends led me into the trap of drugs. They exploited my curiosity and recklessness, encouraging me to try them. I experimented with various substances—crystal, hashish,…
“Alum and salt”… the way drug dealers get out of
Ibtihal Salem, a 22-year-old woman incarcerated in the Central Women's Prison in Baghdad, openly acknowledges her 12 arrests for drug trafficking. She claims that after each detention, she managed to persuade the security forces to release her, with only her drugs being seized, while she paid bribes to secure her freedom. The unmarried woman, who has not received any formal education, began her involvement in the drug trade in 2018, when she was still under the age of 17. She recounts that she worked in the business for four years before her most recent arrest in the Doura district of…
Cities sinking in pollutants… Water pollution chases the southern Iraqi
On the morning of February 16, 2022, Arabic teacher Ali Kazem experienced a sudden stomach ache while lecturing his students at school. Continuous pain, vomiting, and diarrhea prompted his colleagues to taking him to a hospital in the Soq Al-Shuyukh, south of Nasiriya, the center of Dhi Qar Governorate (360…
Freely available weapons and a growing influence of non-state forces
Hawraa, a 32-year-old lawyer from Najaf, left the legal profession after practicing for nearly seven years. Her decision came after she was assaulted over a personal status lawsuit she was handling in 2022. Without a job, she turned to the cosmetics industry, which has since become her new source of…
Crude Oil Refineries Belonging to Influential People in Iraqi Kurdistan
“If thorough examinations were conducted on the region’s inhabitants, we would discover the extent of the catastrophe we are living in, with primitive refineries emitting their toxins day and night without any treatment.”
Power struggle in Thi Qar met with reform protests
Protests erupt in Thi Qar over unemployment, corruption, and poor services.
Shafqat Al-Amel: Basra’s biggest squatter crisis
Largest informal settlement: Shafqat Al-Amel and 100,000 land encroachments in Basra
