(Baghdad) Dozens of people demonstrated in Baghdad on Tuesday to denounce the shortages of water and electricity plaguing Iraq in the heat of summer, also castigating the responsibility of neighboring Turkey in the drop in the flow of the rivers which cross the country.
Considered by the UN as one of the five countries in the world most exposed to certain effects of climate change, Iraq is suffering its fourth consecutive drought season this year.
In addition to the lack of rainfall and rising temperatures, the government castigates the dams built upstream in Turkey and Iran, responsible for a drastic drop in the flows of the Tigris and the Euphrates, two rivers that cross Iraq and take their source in Turkey.
Despite a scorching temperature approaching 50 degrees, dozens of demonstrators gathered on Tuesday at midday in a square in Baghdad, according to an AFP videographer.
“If the Turkish government continues to make Iraqis thirsty, we will move towards an internationalization of the water problem and a boycott of Turkish products”, could be read on a sign.
” There is no water. We came to demonstrate peacefully and demand water from the government and the source countries,” said Majeh Jawda Khalil, who came from the central province of Babylon to take part in the mobilization.
“Agricultural regions and marshes are finished,” he laments. “There is no electricity or water,” he castigated.
“Twenty years and the electricity crisis is repeated every year,” read another banner.
The summer in Iraq illustrates the convergence of crises that weigh on the daily lives of 43 million Iraqis, in particular load shedding due to the deterioration of the electricity sector, undermined by repeated conflicts, poor public management and endemic corruption.
Tuesday’s mobilization in Baghdad also coincided with a demonstration by veterinarians who came to demand government jobs.
The water issue is fueling tensions between Turkey and Iraq, which is asking Ankara to release larger quantities of water upstream in the Tigris and Euphrates.
“Iraq currently receives only 35% of its water rights. This means that Iraq has lost 65% of its water, whether for the Tigris or the Euphrates”, recently explained to AFP the spokesman for the ministry of water resources Khaled Chamal.
In the summer of 2022, the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad provoked outrage by accusing the Iraqis of “wasting water” and inviting them to “modernize irrigation systems”.