Oil, Pollution and Global Warming: the Reality for Iraq

Angelo Calianno visits the oil-producing town of Basra and the Mesopotamian marshlands to witness the direct consequences of fossil fuel production on the environment and its inhabitants 

Today more than ever, the problem of energy production has become crucial. The latest conflict between Russia and Ukraine is redefining the race for gas and oil supplies. But what are the consequences for those populations that live where the resources are?

Basra, in southern Iraq, extracts 70% of the nation’s crude oil. This province, in line with its resources, should be very rich and technologically advanced.  Instead, it has one of the highest rates of pollution in the entire Middle East. 

Places like the Nahr Bin Omar refinery are located close to the suburbs, where 90% of the inhabitants have a disease related to the respiration of toxic gases or ingesting contaminated water. As large families are the norm here, most of them are children.

To treat tumours and leukaemia in childhood, there is only the Basra Children’s Hospital which has only 125 beds, which are always full. Hundreds of families come here for daily chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments. 

Oil plants still use the “gas flaring” system, that is, they burn in the air the gases derived from the extraction of oil, putting them into the atmosphere. In 2019 alone, it was estimated that more than 100 thousand people were hospitalized because of poisoned drinking water.

Despite all this, in Basra, there is no anti-pollution plan or a real law for the recycling of waste. Some private companies deal with the pollution for those who want to recycle independently, but the city’s waste now invades many of the main canals. 

The scourge of pollution does not only cause damage in the places close to the refineries.

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