Faithful as a trader, Mohammed had never seen such a disastrous summer: the drought which is roughing up Iraq has considerably reduced the size of the once majestic Lake Habbaniyah, whose brackish waters now keep away summer visitors who once delighted in it. find some freshness.
Buoys, landing nets, t-shirts… Mohammed has taken out his best items on the steps of his shop, located a few dozen meters from the lake. But if the merchandise is there, the tourist is missing.
“The last two years there has been activity,” said Mohammed, 35, who does not wish to give his full name.
“But now there’s no more water. This year, it’s drought, drought!”
The waters of Lake Habbaniyah, an hour and a half drive west of Baghdad, have receded several dozen meters in a year.
And for good reason, “the lake only contains 500 million cubic meters of water”, compared to “3.3 billion cubic meters when the lake was at its maximum capacity”, which last happened in 2020. , explains to AFP Jamal Odeh Samir, director of water resources of the province of Al-Anbar, in which the artificial lake is located.
The resort area around Habbaniyah, where shops like Mohammed’s once stood alongside holiday apartments, is desperately empty in the height of the summer season.
On the beach there are only a few scattered umbrellas and a handful of stray dogs. And to reach the water, you now have to travel several tens of meters in smelly mud.
Yet Lake Habbaniyah was still famous a few years ago throughout the Middle East as an oasis of coolness in the middle of the desert.
But like the rest of the country, Habbaniyah is suffocating. Iraq is experiencing its fourth consecutive year of drought. The country is one of the five most exposed to some effects of climate change, according to the United Nations.
“Iraq’s strategic water reserves are at their lowest level” for almost a century, spokesman for the Ministry of Water Resources, Khaled Chamal, recently warned.
And this week, visiting the country, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk was even moved that rising temperatures, drought and loss of biodiversity are a “reality” in Iraq. “This is a wake-up call to Iraq and the whole world,” he said.
In Habbaniyah, the lack of rainfall and extreme temperatures have contributed to the drop in the level of the lake. But we must above all look at the side of the Euphrates, which feeds the body of water and has its source in Turkey and crosses Syria before watering Iraq.
The river and lake are suffering “from a shortage of water discharges from upstream countries, Turkey and Syria”, says Samir.
And to point the finger at the role of the dams built by Turkey. According to the Iraqi authorities, these works are mainly responsible for the drastic reduction in the flow of the Euphrates and the Tigris.
Result: “the lake has declined” and “tourist attendance is really very, very low”, laments Sada’a Saleh Mohammed, director of the audit department of the seaside resort for 25 years. “The lake has become a pool of stagnant water, unfit for drinking and swimming.”
Today, you have to wait until dusk and a slight drop in temperatures to see a handful of families preparing a barbecue on the beach.
Like Qassem Lafta, who came with his family from the nearby city of Fallujah.
“It used to be much better, the water was higher,” said the 45-year-old trader. And he calls on the Iraqi state to take care of the lake, because “it is the only place where people from Al-Anbar, southern Iraq and Baghdad can come to relax”.
14/08/2023 05:16:29 – Habbaniyah (Iraq) (AFP) © 2023 AFP
