Climate migrants flee Iraq's parched rural south, but cities offer no refuge

The Washington Post
Sep 07, 2022

Climate migrants flee Iraq's parched rural south, but cities offer no refuge


BASRA, Iraq — What happens when the land dries up?

The world is facing this question; Iraq is already learning the answers.

First the farmers and the fishermen try to stay. Then, one by one, they reach their breaking point. Migration starts slowly, but the exodus to towns and cities soon swells, and as temperatures rise, so do tensions.

The United Nations describes Iraq as the fifth-most-vulnerable country to climate change. Temperatures have increased by 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in three decades, according to Berkeley Earth, well above the global average, and in the summers, the mercury now regularly hits 50 Celsius (122 Fahrenheit). The heat is burning crops and desiccating marshes. As upstream dams in Turkey and Iran weaken the flows of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, a salty tide is creeping north from the Persian Gulf, poisoning the land — and the jobs it once created.

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