Iraqi merchant Mohamed has never seen such a grim tourist season — years of drought have shrunken the majestic Lake Habbaniyah, keeping away the holidaymakers who once flocked there during the summer.
“The last two years, there was some activity, but now there’s no more water,” said 35-year-old Mohamed, asking to be identified by his first name only.
He laid out inflatable water floats, nets and shirts in front of his lakeside shop, but expected few if any customers.
Photo: AFP
“This year, it’s dry, dry,” Mohamed said, his shirt soaked in sweat in the inhospitable heat of nearly 50°C.
Shorelines at Habbaniyah, about 70km west of the capital, Baghdad, have receded by several dozen meters after four consecutive years of drought ravaged parts of the nation.
The UN ranks water-stressed Iraq as one of five nations most impacted by some effects of climate change.
When full, as it last was in 2020, the lake can hold up to 3.3 billion cubic meters of water, said Jamal Odeh Samir, director of water resources in Anbar Province, but now “the lake contains no more than 500 million cubic meters of water.”
Shops like Mohamed’s and holiday homes by the lake now sit empty in the height of summer. On the beach, stray dogs wander between unused umbrellas.
To get to the water, visitors must walk through foul-smelling mud that was once submerged under the lake surface.
The resort was created around the artificial lake in 1979, becoming a popular destination for tourists from across the Middle East in the following years.
Declining rainfall over the past four years and rising temperatures have hit Habbaniyah — alongside much of the rest of the nation — hard.
Baghdad blames upstream dam construction by Turkey on a staggering low water level in the Euphrates River, which feeds the lake and also runs through Syria.
“The strategic water reserves in Iraq are at their lowest point” in nearly a century, said Khaled Shamal, spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of Water Resources.
Last week during a visit to Baghdad, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk warned that “rising temperatures plus the drought, and the fact that the loss of diversity is a reality, is a wake-up call for Iraq and for the world.”
Sada’a Saleh Mohamed, a local official overseeing finances at the Habbaniyah resort, said that “the lake has receded” and tourism has become “really very weak.”
“The lake has become a pond of stagnant water, unsuitable for consumption or for swimming,” he said.
When evening fell and temperatures dropped slightly, a few people finally arrived to barbecue on the beach.
Qassem Lafta came with his family from the nearby city of Fallujah.
“Before, we would come here and it was much better, the water was higher,” the 45-year-old merchant said.
He said he hoped authorities would revive the lake.
“It’s the only place where people from Anbar, southern Iraq and Baghdad can come to relax,” he said.
IDENTITY: A sex extortion scandal involving Thai monks has deeply shaken public trust in the clergy, with 11 monks implicated in financial misconduct Reverence for the saffron-robed Buddhist monkhood is deeply woven into Thai society, but a sex extortion scandal has besmirched the clergy and left the devout questioning their faith. Thai police this week arrested a woman accused of bedding at least 11 monks in breach of their vows of celibacy, before blackmailing them with thousands of secretly taken photos of their trysts. The monks are said to have paid nearly US$12 million, funneled out of their monasteries, funded by donations from laypeople hoping to increase their merit and prospects for reincarnation. The scandal provoked outrage over hypocrisy in the monkhood, concern that their status
The United States Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday it plans to adopt rules to bar companies from connecting undersea submarine communication cables to the US that include Chinese technology or equipment. “We have seen submarine cable infrastructure threatened in recent years by foreign adversaries, like China,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr said in a statement. “We are therefore taking action here to guard our submarine cables against foreign adversary ownership, and access as well as cyber and physical threats.” The United States has for years expressed concerns about China’s role in handling network traffic and the potential for espionage. The U.S. has
A disillusioned Japanese electorate feeling the economic pinch goes to the polls today, as a right-wing party promoting a “Japanese first” agenda gains popularity, with fears over foreigners becoming a major election issue. Birthed on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic, spreading conspiracy theories about vaccinations and a cabal of global elites, the Sanseito Party has widened its appeal ahead of today’s upper house vote — railing against immigration and dragging rhetoric that was once confined to Japan’s political fringes into the mainstream. Polls show the party might only secure 10 to 15 of the 125 seats up for grabs, but it is
The US Department of Education on Tuesday said it opened a foreign funding investigation into the University of Michigan (UM) while alleging it found “inaccurate and incomplete disclosures” in a review of the university’s foreign reports, after two Chinese scientists linked to the school were separately charged with smuggling biological materials into the US. As part of the investigation, the department asked the university to share, within 30 days, tax records related to foreign funding, a list of foreign gifts, grants and contracts with any foreign source, and other documents, the department said in a statement and in a letter to
RSS