Drought drives economic exodus from Iraq's rivers and marshlands

On a sun-scorched shoreline in Iraq's southern marshlands, fishermen stood shoveling a grim catch: tiny fish gathered dead from the water, fit only for use as animal fodder.

Locals once lived self-sufficient lives in the vast freshwater areas that make up the UNESCO-recognized Iraqi Marshlands, filling their nets with varieties of fish and keeping large herds of water buffalo.

But in recent years, droughts in the rivers that feed the marshes have led them to recede and turn brackish as the nearby sea infiltrates, leading to the disappearance of fish and threatening a way of life that goes back centuries.

"The fresh water is finished," said Khamis Adel, a lifelong fishermen and indigenous Marsh Arab from Al-Khora in Basra.

"There used to be many kinds of fish but now it's all gone, due to the lack of water and salinity and the dams that were built," he said.

He stared out at the arid landscape, believed by some to be the inspiration for the Garden of Eden, but now greyish-brown, dotted with abandoned wooden skiffs and the bleached bones of water buffalo that could not withstand thirst and hunger.

"Where do we go now?"

It's a question asked by many who once lived off Iraq's marshlands, rich waterways which gave birth to civilization in ancient Mesopotamia.

Reuters