BASRA IS THIRSTY Iraq’S Failure to Manage the Water Crisis WATCH
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HUMAN RIGHTS BASRA IS THIRSTY Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Water Crisis WATCH Basra is Thirsty Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Water Crisis Copyright © 2019 Human Rights Watch All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America ISBN: 978-1-6231-37502 Cover design by Rafael Jimenez Human Rights Watch defends the rights of people worldwide. We scrupulously investigate abuses, expose the facts widely, and pressure those with power to respect rights and secure justice. Human Rights Watch is an independent, international organization that works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all. Human Rights Watch is an international organization with staff in more than 40 countries, and offices in Amman, Amsterdam, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Goma, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Tunis, Washington DC, and Zurich. For more information, please visit our website: http://www.hrw.org JULY 2019 ISBN: 978-1-6231-37502 Basra is Thirsty Iraq’s Failure to Manage the Water Crisis Map .................................................................................................................................... i Summary ........................................................................................................................... 1 Lack of Information during the 2018 Health Crisis...................................................................... 3 Water Mismanagement .............................................................................................................4 Agricultural, Health Impact ....................................................................................................... 7 The Way Forward ..................................................................................................................... 9 Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 11 I. Background ................................................................................................................... 13 II. The Problem: Lack of Safe Water for People and Livelihoods ......................................... 19 Salinity ................................................................................................................................... 19 Livelihoods: Farming, Raising Livestock, and Fisheries ........................................................... 20 Contamination ........................................................................................................................ 25 Schools .................................................................................................................................. 34 III. The Reason: Insufficient Water Quality and Quantity ................................................... 37 Lack of Enforcement ............................................................................................................... 38 Mismanagement & Corruption ................................................................................................ 71 Unsustainable Agricultural and Domestic Water Usage ........................................................... 86 Lack of Adequate Information, Healthcare, and Remedial Measures ....................................... 88 Other Contributing Factors ...................................................................................................... 93 IV. International Legal Obligations ................................................................................. 103 Right to Water ....................................................................................................................... 104 Right to Sanitation ................................................................................................................ 107 Rights to Health and Healthy Environment ............................................................................ 107 Right to Property ................................................................................................................... 108 Right to Information .............................................................................................................. 109 V. The Way Forward ......................................................................................................... 110 Recommendations for Iraqi Authorities ................................................................................. 114 Recommendation for the United Nations’ Special Procedures ................................................. 117 Recommendation for Iranian, Turkish and Syrian Authorities .................................................. 117 Recommendations for Donor Governments ............................................................................ 117 Recommendations for JICA .................................................................................................... 118 Recommendations for Development and Humanitarian Actors ............................................... 118 Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ 120 Appendix I: Letter to Mr. Muhammad Tahir al-Mulhim from Human Rights Watch .............. 121 Appendix II: Letter to Mr. Shinichi Kitaoka from Human Rights Watch ............................. 126 Appendix III: Letter to Human Rights Watch from JICA on May 24, 2019 ........................... 130 Map Map of southern Iraq and waterways feeding into the Shatt al-Arab and into the Persian Gulf. Global surface water data: EC JRC/Google. Reference data: OSM, GADM. Summary For almost 30 years, including during the period of occupation by the US- and UK-led Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraqi authorities have failed to properly manage and regulate Iraq’s water resources, depriving the people in Iraq’s southern Basra governorate—a population of roughly 4 million—of their right to safe drinking water. Basra’s primary water sources are the Shatt al-Arab river and its freshwater canals. But multiple government failures since the 1980s, including poor management of upstream sources, inadequate regulation of pollution and sewage, and chronic neglect and mismanagement of water infrastructure, have caused the quality of these waterways to deteriorate. While the degradation of Basra’s water sources has been a persistent problem for decades, it became a full-blown crisis in the summer of 2018, when at least 118,000 people were hospitalized due to symptoms doctors identified as related to water quality. In August, hundreds of people began pouring into Basra’s hospitals suffering from rashes, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, overwhelming their staff and available stocks of medicine. By August 16, the Basra Health Directorate identified water contamination as a likely cause, and its director, Riyad Abd al-Amir, called on people to boil all water before drinking or cooking with it. The following week, the Iraqi Ministry of Health denied the existence of a serious epidemic of cholera or other diseases due to water contamination in Basra governorate, even as hundreds of people continued to be hospitalized each day. On August 26, hundreds of residents stormed the Basra Health Directorate to protest the poor health services provided to those who had fallen ill. On September 29, the head of the office of the Independent High Commission for Human Rights in Basra, Mehdi Al-Tamimi, stated that the number of cases had reached 100,000, with heath authorities registering at least 118,000 cases by November 2018. While experts disagree on the exact cause of the illness, they all agree that it was related to poor water quality. 1 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | JULY 2019 A range of contaminants in the Shatt al-Arab and connected waterways in central Basra city during the health crisis from September to October 2018 that Human Rights Watch identified in satellite imagery. Analysis. © 2019 Human Rights Watch. Road data: OSM. Linked to the crisis, according to the United Nations, almost 4,000 individuals had to leave their homes in August 2018, likely because they did not have access to enough potable water, though the causal link has yet to be clearly demonstrated. That year, the water flowing to the Shatt al-Arab and its canals from rivers upstream decreased, resulting in elevated levels of sewage, agricultural, industrial pollution, and salinity in the water. Some experts believe that the health crisis was sparked by an algal bloom created due to these conditions. The 2018 crisis was preceded by similar water-related health crises in 2009 and 2015, yet after all these crises local and federal authorities failed to properly address the underlying causes or establish procedures to protect residents before a new crisis arose. For example, during the 2018 crisis authorities did not adequately alert residents regarding the poor water quality and still have not published any official investigations into the cause of the health crisis. BASRA IS THIRSTY 2 Moreover, authorities continue to allow, or turn a blind eye to, activities that pollute Basra’s water resources and lead to a decline in water flows despite the health and financial risks to residents. In February 2019, likely as a result of the 2018 crisis, the Ministry of Health and Environment started posting online weekly reports on the water quality in the Tigris, Euphrates, and Shatt al-Arab.