Government to build houses for marshland inhabitants

The Iraqi government will build residential complexes consisting of 5,000 houses to accommodate as many families in the marshlands area of southern Iraq, two local officials said.



Hamid al-Dhalimi, a member of Basra Provincial Council and head of the Marshlands Committee, said 3,000 houses will be built in Maysan province and 1,000 each in Nassiriyah and Basra provinces – the three provinces in which the marshlands exist.



Costing 144.6 billion Iraqi dinars (about US$ 125 million), the housing project is expected to be finished within 10 months.



Sheikh Mohammed al-Ebadi, who heads the Maysan Provincial Committee to Revive Marshlands, said the complexes will also have schools, medical centres, mosques, animal pens and water and sanitation centres.



Al-Ebadi noted that the project was just a step in the right direction and not an overall solution to the marshlands’ problems.



“The project will help only a few of the inhabitants of the marshlands, not all of them,” al-Ebadi said. “We need more funds and more time to make those people’s lives better.”

Photo: Azzam Alwash/Iraq Foundation

UNESCO estimates that there may be as few as 20,000 of the original marshlands inhabitants remaining

Marshlands decline



Iraq’s marshlands have been damaged significantly since the 1970s due to upstream dam construction and further in the 1990s when former president Saddam Hussein had the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers diverted from the marshes in retaliation for a failed uprising by Shia muslims.



By 2001, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) reported that 90 percent of the marshlands had been lost. The wetlands turned into desert, forcing some 300,000 inhabitants out. Since 2003, efforts to restore the marshes have gradually revived the area, and former residents began returning.



Today, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that there may be as few as 20,000 of the original inhabitants remaining, the rest having fled or migrated to Iran and elsewhere, while an estimated minimum of 100,000 have become internally displaced in Iraq.



This latest housing initiative comes amid efforts by Iraqi and international organisations to revive the ailing marshlands, which are suffering low water levels.



On 12 March, the Iraqi government and a number of UN agencies launched a $47 million scheme to remove dykes and canals built in Saddam’s time so that water can flow back into marshland areas.



It is also aims to help the government strengthen services, build better governance systems and develop agriculture and public services in marshland areas.



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