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3.5 million Basra residents are threatened with lethal diseases

SHAFAQNA- Iraq’s Basra declares 17000 infection cases from water pollute. This city residents are threatened with death. The Basra directorate called on the Iraqi government to intervene to rescue the Basra 3.5 million population from being infected with lethal diseases.

According to Iraqi News, Iraq’s southern province of Basra has recorded 17000 infection cases due to water contamination, its health official was quoted saying.

Riyad Abdul-Amir, head of the health department in Basra, told Aloma website that Basra hospitals have, so far, received more than 17000 cases of diarrhea abdominal distress due to water contamination.

Abdul-Amir warned of a “cholera outbreak as salinity rates continue to increase in the water unprocessed”.

He said that in his 11 years in the job he has never before seen such a crisis, which has been exacerbated by a lack of public services and rising prices.

Selim had no choice but to drink from the tap despite knowing the risk

Younes Selim clutches his stomach in pain at a hospital in southern Iraq, one of thousands to fall ill in a region flush with oil but desperately short of drinking water.

Sitting in an emergency ward in Basra, along with patients on drips suffering from severe diarrhea, Selim said he had no choice but to drink from the tap despite knowing the risk.

“We only give mineral water to our three children, but my wife and I often have to drink tap water,” he told AFP, waiting for one of the hospital’s overwhelmed doctors to treat him.

Umm Haydar, a market vendor in the port city, said she also struggles to provide drinking water for her family of 30.

“A thousand litres cost 20,000 dinars ($17) and once we have all drunk and washed the children, in half an hour there’s nothing left,” the grandmother said.

While Iraq’s water shortages are not just confined to Basra, the region suffers from a toxic mix of polluted and salty water, dismal public services, power cuts and open sewers.

Cholera and cancer epidemics would spread across Iraq

According to Middle East Monitor, Cholera and cancer epidemics would spread across Iraq if water salinity continues to rise, official Iraqi sources warned today.

The health directory of the Iraqi province of Basra announced that “the increase in water salinity and pollution in Basra will lead to an increase in the poisoning cases and the spread of diseases across the city.”

Haider al-Abadi urged local authorities to address the water contamination issue

“Basra residents are threatened with death ,” the directorate stressed. “Iraq’s Ministry of Water Resources”, the directorate added, “has been responsible for the increase of Basra’s water pollution which had led to the prevalence of various diseases across the city”.

The Basra directorate called on the Iraqi government to intervene to rescue the Basra 3.5 million population from being infected with lethal diseases.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi urged local authorities to address the water contamination issue and to ensure sufficient water deliveries from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Basra sits on the Shatt al-Arab waterway formed by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers which flow into the Persian Gulf.

In Basra, sewage flows into open canals that join the Shatt al-Arab, mixing with industrial pollution from the oil industry, Iraq’s sole source of foreign income.

Wide-scale popular protests over poor public services last month in Basra

Basra was one of several southern provinces which had seen wide-scale popular protests over poor public services last month, which developed into violent encounters with security forces.

Muzahim al-Timimi, a newly elected and independent member of parliament in Basra, said the demonstrations did not stem from salty water and electricity cuts alone. “We are used to the heat and salty water from the Saddam times,” Timimi said, The Guardian reported.

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