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Safe drinking water has become a scarce commodity in Iraq despite the famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run the length of the country. (Reuters) |
BAGHDAD — Like millions of people in post-invasion Iraq, a region historically known as Mesopotamia for laying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, safe, reachable drinking people is now a luxury for Salwa Haeyt and her family.
"Sometimes I ask myself if we are in Iraq, or in Africa," Haeyt, a mother of two who lives in the Sadr City district of Baghdad, told IslamOnline.net.
"That’s a shame."
Safe drinking water has become a scarce commodity in Iraq despite the famous Tigris and Euphrates rivers that run the length of the country.
In Haeyt's neighborhood, just like dozens of other districts across the country, the water system isn’t working properly in 80 percent of the district.
Residents depend mainly on water tanks made available by local NGOs.
"The government doesn’t deliver clean water, only NGOs do," said Haeyt, 35.
"And even those, amid the ongoing violence, are staying each day farther away from us."
In Baghdad alone, half of the six-million population has no access to clean water, and some families use bottled or boiled water.
"We don’t have the money to afford potable bottles of water," laments the Iraq mother.
Haydar Abdel-Kareem, a Baghdad resident who works as a gardener, faces a similar struggle.
"We are hardly able to buy cooking gas to cook so we can't spend our money on bottled water."
According to UN figures, one in three Iraqis has access to clean water.
A recent report by Oxfam said the number of Iraqis without safe drinking water has risen from 50 percent in 2003, when the US invaded the country, to 70 percent in 2007.
Health Risks
The chronic shortage of safe water is blamed for the spread of dangerous, waterborne diseases.
"Everyday, dozens of Iraqis visit hospitals searching for treatment of diseases mainly caused by contaminated water," said a pediatrician at Baghdad Children’s Hospital in Mansour district, requesting anonymity.
The lack of clean water has been blamed for cholera outbreaks and other health problems plaguing thousands of Iraqis, especially children.
"Many children are at hospitals suffering from diarrhea caused by waterborne diseases," said a senior Health Ministry official.
"If they survive, they return to the same environment and maybe cannot stand a second health crisis, because most of them are from poor families who cannot afford a good treatment."
Diarrhea is already the second highest cause of child illness and mortality in Iraq.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said last year that drinking water shortage threatened to push up diarrhea rates in the country, particularly among children.
Last month, the Health Ministry reported a total of 327 confirmed cholera cases in central and southern Iraq since an outbreak of the disease a month earlier.
Last August, the World Health Organization (WHO) described the cholera outbreak in northern Iraq as a "major epidemic".
Rebuilding
The water crisis is worsened by the poor state of Iraq's infrastructure after years of neglect and war.
"We are aware that the country’s dilapidated water infrastructure desperately needs improvements after years of war and UN sanctions," Ali Muhkhtar, a senior Ministry of Reconstruction official, told IOL.
"However, we cannot work properly when employees are leaving their jobs scared from violence or few investments are being spent on the area."
Despite repeated pledges and massive budgets allocated to overcome the problem, the government hasn’t repaired more than 30 percent of the water and sanitation systems.
Experts, on the other hand, blame corruption as the main cause of the failed infrastructure.
"Officials see their jobs as a way to make easy money and enrich through bribes," says Waleed Abdel-Aziz, a professor at Mustansiriyah University and an expert on reconstruction issues.
"Ruling parties monopolize the jobs and contracts making it hard for officials to carry out investigations and check outs."
Ibrahim Tayfour, a 36-year-old Baghdad resident, also blames government officials for his everyday struggle to get the necessities of life.
"They are responsible for our chaotic situation," he fumes.
"Rather than discussing politics, they should find a way to ease our lives by at least offering clean water and electricity.
"Instead, they are arguing on foolish topics while people are dying with cholera countrywide."
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