At the beginning of my long stay in Iraq, photographers were afraid to experiment with drone cameras. Not because they were so new and expensive, but because they had to get permission from the security service. If you were caught with your camera in the air without such a note covered with official stamps, you could be arrested. And journalists were already more at risk of this than ordinary citizens.
I also remember how startled I was by the drone that flew past the window of my office on the 13th floor in Erbil. Not a small one that you attach a camera to, but one with wings, essentially a small airplane. A military drone for surveillance purposes. It was during the war against ISIS, and these were constantly used. But what was that thing doing in the air outside my apartment building in the capital of Kurdistan?
In retrospect, it must have been a practice run. I lived not far from the airport, where foreign troops were stationed participating in the fight against ISIS. Helicopters also constantly buzzed past my apartment building. It’s a shame the drone had already gone before I had the presence of mind to take a photo of it.
ISIS also had them in the air, as one of my colleagues found out to his detriment. He was conducting a TV interview on a rather open location that had been recently liberated from the terrorist group – and then an explosive dropped from the sky. He and his team had heard the drone in the air, but assumed it was from the foreign coalition and didn’t pay it much attention. The colleague was injured but survived.
Civilians
After the departure of ISIS, drones have become the favorite weapon with which the Turkish army tries to kill members of the Turkish-Kurdish resistance group PKK. But at the same time, they often hit innocent civilians too. In four attacks in one week, two cars traveling on a busy road through Kurdistan were targeted. In both cases, the victims were civilians; in one instance, even Arabs from Mosul.
It already happened before that innocent victims were affected. But now it’s on busy roads that many civilians use. The chance of becoming a target has suddenly increased significantly. One might almost think that Turkey is now trying to exert pressure on the government through the Kurdish civilians, to expel the PKK from Iraqi Kurdistan.
Why am I revisiting these Turkish attacks? Because, surprisingly, this time there was no protest from any official side. Usually, there’s at least some kind of grumbling from the Kurdistan or Iraqi government. This time, it remained eerily silent.
Then came the announcement from the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources that the amount of water in the main Iraqi rivers had increased after talks with Turkey. The levels had been dangerously low because Turkey retained the water in its reservoirs. Now, Iraq can successfully address the water crisis, said the ministry.
More Water
The minister reportedly spoke with the Turkish ambassador in Baghdad, following earlier talks between Prime Minister Sudani and the authorities in Ankara. And since August 11th, more water has been flowing into Iraq. In the Tigris, by opening the outlet of the Alisu Dam, and in the Euphrates by the Ataturk Dam.
In this part of the world, the principle of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’ is even stronger than elsewhere. The agreements had been in place since March, and since June, they had a technical implementation plan. Why did it take until August for the tap to truly open? It’s hard not to draw a connection between the allowance of drone attacks in Iraqi Kurdistan and the fact that around the same time, the water flow finally resumed.
For the water shortages have been acute for months. In Baghdad, you can wade through the Tigris to the other side of the city without getting your T-shirt wet. All this in a situation where the temperatures keep rising, now often exceeding 50 degrees Celsius. The marshes in southern Iraq are drying up. Farmland as well, resulting in many hectares lost annually for agriculture.
The United Nations Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, warned during a visit to Baghdad that the Iraqi water crisis could also have implications for other countries in the region. He said that this crisis arises from a toxic mix of global warming, drought, poor management, violence, and ‘excesses of the oil industry’. The latter consumes a lot of water.
He fears an increase in climate migration and criticized the way dissent on failing government policies is punished. Lawsuits and threats against journalists and activists have a negative impact on freedom of expression, said Türk.
Pollution
It’s rare to have all of Iraq’s problems presented so neatly in a row. And then he even forgot to mention that due to drought and the low level of the rivers, water pollution is the next issue that Iraq has to deal with. A lot of sewage water is unprocessed when it ends up in the rivers, which now lack the volume to disperse the waste properly.
Water is an issue that brings people to the streets. For many summers, the oil city of Basra was the scene of protests because people were actually getting sick from the drinking water, partly due to the increasing salinization of the Shatt al-Arab river. This was also due to the declining water levels in the feeding rivers combined with global warming. And these problems have not been resolved yet.
These days, many people in Kurdistan are also protesting against water shortage. Previously, water supply to the houses was opened every night for a few hours, or even once every two days, but now it’s sometimes only once a week. A filled water tank on your roof really doesn’t last that long. And an additional tank doesn’t help anymore either. It’s not just due to the low level of the rivers, but mainly because the underground lakes are also drying out.
To make matters worse, these protests are taking place in Erbil, the seat of the Barzani government, where they have always been quickly dispersed. During the protests against unpaid civil servant salaries, I saw an elderly teacher being beaten by security forces. His female colleague hardly fared better. Journalists who dare to protest against the restriction of press freedom can expect long prison sentences.
Management
Just as the government in Baghdad has been warned for years about the effects of poor water management and drought, Erbil has ignored warnings about the danger of using that so-called ancient water underground. And citizens react to this mismanagement. Anyone wanting to stay in power should be concerned about this. Because the protests in Basra expanded so much in 2022 that they managed to topple a government in Baghdad.
Baghdad and Erbil are more worried about this than about those drone attacks on resistance groups they’d rather be rid of anyway. And against which citizens are also less likely to take to the streets. A pragmatic government knows when to choose between two evils.
