Environment
The deadly thirst: Iraqi Kurdistan is drying too!
Thirst is no longer confined to southern Iraq and its salty Basra. Even the mountains of Kurdistan, once described as the country’s water reservoir, are beginning to wither. Rivers are cut off, wells run dry, and villages are silently abandoned. This is drought creeping in relentlessly.
Brick Factory Workers in Iraq: Facing Death, Injuries, and Disease
On the morning of January 1, 2024, 28-year-old Hussein Ne’ma was going about his usual duties as a furnace operator at the “Al-Janabi” brick factory in the Zaid Bin Ali area of Babil province, southern Iraq. As he stood atop the brick-constructed furnace, refueling it with black oil, the roof suddenly collapsed beneath him. He fell into the blazing fire and died instantly. His younger brother, Salam, recalled receiving a phone call from one of the factory workers that morning. He rushed to the site only to find the Civil Defense team struggling to extinguish the flames. With deep sorrow,…
Al-Gharraf Oil Field… The First Accused of Spreading Cancer in
Only 600 meters away from the Gharraf oil field, located to the north of Dhi Qar Governorate, is the home of young Ali Hussein Alwan (19 years old). In early February 2023, doctors discovered a tumor in his brain. He underwent two surgeries to remove it at the Al-Ahli International Hospital and Dr. Saad Al-Watari Hospital in Baghdad, and he received six chemotherapy sessions afterward. His father, Hussein Alwan (45 years old), blames the gas emissions from the Gharraf oil field, saying: “They are the cause of what happened to my son.” The difficult health condition of his son, along…
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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…
Pollution and health damage.. Iraqis compensate for the state’s deficit
Mohammed Hussein (54 years old) was forced to sell his house located in the Al-Ra’isah neighborhood east of the capital, Baghdad, in the summer of 2023, due to the noise and smoke from the diesel generator next to the wall his house, which collapsed due to the vibrations resulting from…
Concrete blocks extend to the mountains of Sulaymaniyah and threaten
“They are turning green spaces into concrete cubes!” says Sara Karim (34 years old) as she points to an area in the Sarjnar resort (5 km west of Sulaymaniyah) that used to be a “public park” that she used to frequent during her childhood years before it was transformed into…
Diyala River.. Pollutants and the inability of “Al-Rustamiya” destroy life
Only a few days had passed since Murtadha was born in Al-Zafaraniya Hospital, south of the capital Baghdad, until his parents brought him back and admitted him to the premature infant ward, hoping that his breathing would return to normal after a suffocation attack that struck him due to the…
The other side of Kurdistan… 16 years of residents of
Every morning, before heading to his job as a middle school physics teacher, Farhad Abdullah (48 years old) places several large empty plastic containers in his car trunk and drives two kilometers to the location of an artesian well on the outskirts of his town, Darbandikhan, in the Sulaymaniyah governorate,…
Kwashi factories and refineries in Dohuk pollute the air and
A.M. (42 years old), who lives in the Bastaki residential complex north of Dohuk in the Kurdistan Region, is forced to close the windows of her house and the air cooler every evening, when primitive oil refineries operating nearby release their pollutants and fumes into the sky, carrying unpleasant odors.…
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.”
