Water salinity hurting farmers, livestock in Iraq

Iraqi farmer Umm Ali has watched her poultry die as salinity levels in the country's south hit record highs, rendering already scarce water unfit for human consumption and killing livestock.

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A young Iraqi farmer feeds his buffalo, one of the kind of Iraqi livestock affected by water salinity. (AFP photo)

(AFP)

"We used to drink, wash and cook with water from the river, but now it's hurting us," said Umm Ali, 40, who lives in the once watery Al Mashab marshes of southern Iraq’s Basra province.

This season alone, she said brackish water has killed dozens of her ducks and 15 chickens.

"I cried and grieved, I felt as if all my hard work had been wasted," said the widowed mother of three.

Iraq, a country heavily impacted by climate change, has been ravaged for years by drought and low rainfall.