The large number of holidays is also impacting on the prices of ordinary food items. Meat and vegetables, often desired for holiday meals, cost more during holidays and bakeries often also close their doors during holidays, making it difficult to get even the simplest food.
While local authorities say the roads into the city are always open, truck drivers who bring food and vegetables into the city say it becomes very difficult to reach the city centre during religious holidays. Then even if the trucks do get there, it’s difficult to distribute the food they bring in to neighbourhoods.
“Every religious holiday, prices go up,” says Shayma Awad, who lives in the middle of Karbala. “Sometimes there are things you cannot even find.”
Fish normally costs IQD5,000 (around US$3) per kilogram but during religious holidays the price rises to IQD8,000 (around US$5) per kilo. Chicken, which usually only costs IQD4,000 (around US$2.50) goes up to IQD6,000 (around US$3.50), Awad reports.
The problem is Karbala’s lack of entry and exit points as well as the current security situation, says a member of local council, Hussein al-Abboudi. “In order to properly accommodate the millions of visitors arriving during religious festivals we need to expand our city, so that we can have the festivals but not impact so much on locals’ lives.”
Al-Abboudi believes moving government departments outside the central city is going to help. But the biggest problem is still the security situation.
“We are forced to impose strict security and ban cars from entering the central city because of this,” al-Abboudi explains. If the situation in Iraq was more stable, life in Karbala could proceed far more normally during all these holidays, he says.
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