The Tigris, which crosses Iraq for 1500 km, is drying up due to the lack of rain but also because of the dams built upstream, in Turkey, where it has its source. In Bajid Kandala, (northern Iraq) on February 18, 2022 (AFP / Ismael ADNAN)
He watered the Garden of Eden, irrigated Sumer and watered Babylon. But in Iraq today, the Tiger is dying. Between human activity and climatic upheaval, the agony of the river threatens to carry away the life that settled there thousands of years ago.
Considered by the UN as one of the five countries most exposed to the consequences of climate change, Iraq no longer counts the ills that overwhelm it: rising temperatures, galloping desertification, falling rainfall, sandstorms that follow one another. covering the country with a thin orange film.
From North to South, the Tiger in Iraq (AFP/Cléa PÉCULIER)
And the Tigris, which crosses Iraq over 1,500 km? He no longer roars. Due to the lack of rain and the dams built upstream, in Turkey, where it originates.
An AFP videographer surveyed the banks of the river, from the source in the north to the sea in the south, to report on the disaster which is forcing residents to change their way of life.
Iraqi authorities and Kurdish farmers accuse Turkey of withholding water from dams built upstream. In Bajid Kandala, in northern Iraq, on February 18, 2022 (AFP/Ismael ADNAN)
In Fichkhabour, in Iraqi Kurdistan, “for two or three years”, notes farmer Pibo Hassan Dolmassa, 41, “the water has been decreasing”.
Official statistics confirm this: the level of the Tigris, when it arrives from Turkey, this year is only 35% of the average quantity that flowed into Iraq over the past 100 years.
Baghdad regularly summons its neighbors Turkey and Iran to release more water. But experts also denounce poor management of water resources and wastage of water.
Confluence of the Tigris River, the dried up Dyala River, in central Iraq. April 11, 2022 (AFP/Ayman HENNA)
In the central province of Dyala, “we will be forced to abandon agriculture and sell our animals”, says Abou Mehdi, a 42-year-old farmer.
This year, due to drought, the government has halved the cultivated areas in Iraq. And as in Diyala there is not enough water, Diyala will not cultivate.
In Baghdad, the sandy deposits, no longer carried southwards due to a lack of flow, have accumulated at the bottom of the Tigris. September 23, 2021 (AFP/Ayman HENNA)
In Baghdad, this summer, the level of the Tigris was so low that AFP filmed young people playing volleyball in the middle of the river.
It is the fault of “sandy deposits”, explains the Ministry of Water Resources. No longer carried to the south due to lack of flow, these deposits have accumulated at the bottom of the Tigris and the river, where the inhabitants of the capital discharge their waste water, has the greatest difficulty in flowing.
Iraqi Molla al-Rached, a farmer in Ras al-Bisha, in southern Iraq where the soil is salinized. February 12, 2022 (AFP/Ayman HENNA)
At Ras al-Bicha (south), on the borders of Iraq, Iran and Kuwait, where the Shatt al-Arab, the main channel of the delta common to the Tigris and the Euphrates, flows into the Gulf, Molla al-Rached, 65, worries about her “thirsty” palm trees.
With the drop in the level of fresh water, the waters of the sea engulf and rise in the Shatt al-Arab, infiltrating into the now salty soils.
The Iraqi Naim Haddad returns from a day of fishing on the Shatt al-Arab, where the sea water rises. Basra (southern Iraq), February 12, 2022 (AFP / Ayman HENNA)
In the far south, barefoot on his boat that he pushes with a stick, Naïm Haddad, 40, returns from a day of fishing on the Shatt al-Arab.
Like all the inhabitants of Basra, he is also worried about the salinization of the river: highly prized freshwater fish have deserted the Shatt al-Arab.
© 2022 AFP
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