Water salinity hurting farmers, livestock in Iraq

A basin is placed under a tap connected to a mesh of pipes drawing water from various sources, as locals suffer from high salinity in the local water supply, in the village of al-Mashab in the marshes north of Basra in southern Iraq at sunset on September 13, 2025. [AFP]

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.

"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.