“The pollution resulting from the work of foreign companies here has reached dangerous levels,” says Shukri Ibrahim Moussawi, an environmental activist and professor at the University of Basra. “It is affecting both the environment and the health of people in a province that already suffers because of pollution that resulted from the war [between Iran and Iraq].”
“The Iraqi government should stop the pollution, caused by oil companies who only care about their production and profits and not about any health or environmental costs,” says Abbas al-Haidari, the mayor of the nearby Zubair district. “Zubair produces over half of all of Iraq’s oil yet nobody pays any attention to the area’s infrastructure, the increasing desertification here or the pollution.”
Besides asking the government to put pressure on oil companies to stick to the conditions under which they were granted licenses, local councillors have suggested a number of other solutions too, including a green belt around the cities affected by the oil production and different kinds of drilling. Some of them have also suggested that a law suit be brought against South Oil to force the firm to look into the matter more carefully.
No matter what happens though, one thing is for sure: for people with respiratory problems like Karrar and seven-year-old Ahmad, it will most likely be too late.
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