Nearly a billion liters of raw sewage is dumped into Baghdad waterways each day -- enough to fill 370 Olympic-sized pool, that's according to a Reuter's report published today, which notes:
The United Nations estimates that less than half of Iraqis get drinking water piped into their homes in rural areas. In the capital, people set their alarm clocks to wake them in the middle of the night so they can fill storage tanks when water pressure is under less strain.
New investments in water and sanitation are only slowly bearing fruit even as Iraq seeks to capitalise on a dramatic drop in violence over the past year.
Iraqi and U.S. officials have been working to refurbish existing water plants, distribution lines and sewage works, but they say major infrastructure improvements will take years.
Since 2003, the United States has spent about $2.4 billion on Iraq's water and sanitation sector, and the Iraqi government has now taken over funding major construction. But the World Bank estimates that at least $14 billion is needed.
It's an incredible story--and one rarely reported and one with tremendous public health consequences:
Acute cases of diarrhea are three times more common in eastern Baghdad, where water service is most problematic, than in the rest of the city, the United Nations says. That side of the city has also seen a higher incidence of cholera.
The report tells of families living on the top floors of apartment buildings--their morning ritual is to carry jugs to a communal tap at street level and haul the day's water back up the stairs. Then there is this:
At the northern edge of Sadr City, a poor, largely Shi'ite area, a man named Ali points across a dusty, trash-strewn yard to the murky canal where he and his children bathe.
"The water is dirty, but what can we do? We don't have any other choice," he says, laughing bitterly. "People like us, who earn three or four dollars a day, we spend it all on generators."
Recent articles on Electronic Iraq:
