Water crisis hits Iraq’s Basra jail
Shafaq News – Basra
Inmates at Basra Central Prison issued an urgent plea, on Wednesday, after the facility ran completely out of water, worsening what officials describe as the province’s “worst” water crisis in decades.
A government source told Shafaq News that the prison’s tanks had emptied, leaving detainees without drinking or sanitation supplies.
Authorities, in response, coordinated with the Basra Water Directorate to deliver emergency shipments, which included water tankers dispatched to meet the prison’s essential needs and ease daily hardships.
Earlier today, Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani arrived in Basra with a ministerial delegation to assess the crisis, meeting with local officials at the provincial headquarters. He outlined measures to tackle Iraq’s chronic water shortages, blaming reduced rainfall and upstream controls by neighboring countries.
On June 29, Basra Governor Asaad al-Eidani told our agency that construction would soon begin on a long-planned seawater desalination plant, calling it the “strategic solution” to rising salinity. He cited dwindling flows from the Tigris, near-total cuts from the Euphrates, and Gulf saltwater intrusion as key factors worsening Basra’s water shortages.
