Younes Ajil turns on the faucet in his home, but nothing comes out: Dozens of villages in drought-stricken Iraq have no running water, surviving on sporadic deliveries from tankers and saline wells.
Ajil and his eight children wait at their home in Al-Aghawat once or twice a week for water deliveries from the Diwaniyah provincial authorities, from drinking to bathing to washing dishes and clothes.
With scorching summer temperatures that sometimes approach 50 degrees, he says he hasn’t bathed for four days.
“Even if there were daily deliveries, there would not be enough water,” said the 42-year-old.
Iraq is known in Arabic as the land of two rivers, but the water levels of the once-mighty Tigris and Euphrates have dropped.
The Euphrates River, which flows through Diwaniyah province, has visibly contracted in recent months, with some of the river’s weaker branches drying up.
Governor Zouheir al-Shaalan said “around a third” of his province had water access problems, affecting more than 75 villages.
Ajil dug a well, but the water is salty.
“We mix that with the water from the trucks and deal with it,” he told AFP.
– climate migration –
Local children scream and run towards an orange water truck driving up the dirt road in their village.
One person fills a large white tank and climbs onto it to hold the truck’s hose as water pours out while others wait to fill smaller tanks or even cooking pots.
Children splash around happily in a rusty old refrigerator that was laid on the floor as a narrow, makeshift tub.
The UN ranks Iraq as the fifth largest country in the world most affected by climate change.
Authorities blame the current water shortages on drought, but also on dams being built upstream on some rivers and tributaries in neighboring Turkey and Iran.
Ajil shares his house with his brother Mohammed.
Like most of their neighbors, they used to make a living from farming.
But for the past two years, the drought has brought local agriculture to its knees, so they have sold their sheep to survive.
There are about 50 houses in the village, Ajil said, but only 10 families are left.
“The rest are gone,” he said. “Without water there is no life.”
A report released this month by the International Organization for Migration in Iraq states that “climate migration is already a reality in the country.”
More than 3,300 families in 10 provinces in the center and south of the country were displaced in March this year due to “climate factors,” according to the report, which is attributed to water shortages, high salinity and poor water quality.
– “Agriculture is our life” –
Hassan Naim, who manages Diwaniyah’s water resources, said around 20 sewage treatment plants were shut down.
In the past, “some rivers ran dry, but only for a few days,” he said.
The current crisis has lasted for more than two months.
Naim acknowledged that authorities were distributing a “very small” amount of water compared to what was needed, but warned against using well water with high levels of salt.
Diwaniyah Governor Shaalan said that to end the shortage, the province must receive twice as many water flows of 85 to 90 cubic meters (3,000 to 3,200 cu ft) per second along the Euphrates River.
“Diwaniyah has no border crossings, oil fields, religious shrines or tourism” to generate income, he said, urging Baghdad authorities to exclude the province from the federal government’s water rationing plan.
“Farming is our life,” he said.
Hundreds of angry residents of Diwaniyah twice took to the streets to protest the situation.
Razzak Issa, a resident of Al-Aghawat, believes a deal with Turkey, the source of the Euphrates, is needed to increase water supplies.
“Yes, we can ration consumption, but it’s hot. How should I ration? I don’t bathe? I don’t wash my clothes? I don’t bathe my children? It’s impossible,” he said.
He, too, mixes salt water from his well with the water that the authorities bring in by truck.
“Where can we go?” he said. “Everywhere in Iraq is ‘torture’.
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