‘We’re just like fish: no water, no life’: Drought and dams push Iraq’s marshes to the edge of extinction Storied marshlands thought by some to be the original Garden of Eden could see conflict over water, activists fear.
For centuries the area was given life by the spring floodwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, but the marshes have been in decline since Saddam Hussein accused the region’s inhabitants of treachery during the war with Iran and ordered them drained to flush out the rebels hiding in the reeds.
The family’s house in Chibayish in southern Iraq was once surrounded by lush groves of tall Phragmites reeds but the pair now have to travel for over an hour just to find anything suitable to sell.
These reeds are the lifeblood of the people living in Iraq’s southern marshes, an area regarded by some as the site of the Garden of Eden.
“We sell each bundle for 2,500 Iraqi dinars (£1.49), but this meagre sum, sometimes, is insufficient to pay for the fuel costs or bring food to the family,” said Mr Abdulhassan, 70.
