The water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Iraq have decreased to unprecedented levels as Iraqi officials yesterday pledged to take measures to address the crisis.
In the city of Nasiriyah, the centre of Dhi Qar Governorate in southern Iraq, an AFP photographer said he was able to see the bed of the Euphrates River from its banks.
Baghdad has repeatedly accused its neighbours Turkiye and Iran of reducing the water rations reaching it by building dams on the two rivers.
The Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources blamed the situation in some southern provinces on “the low quantity of water reaching Iraq from neighbouring Turkey.”
“This has triggered a sharp drop in the country’s water reserves,” it said in a statement.
The ministry also blamed Iraqi farmers who abuse water resources to irrigate their land instead of adhering to the ministry’s guidelines.
To cope with water shortage, the Iraqi authorities ration water for various needs, such as irrigation, agriculture, drinking and feeding the marshes of southern Iraq.
Source: Middle East Monitor
