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Transcript/Script((PLAYBOOK SLUG: COP 28 IRAQ
HEADLINE: Iraq Farms Swallowed by Desert
TEASER: As the U.N. climate conference reaches its final hours, Iraqis farmers live the consequences of inaction
PUBLISHED: Monday, 12/11/2023 at 11:01
BYLINE: Halan Akoiy, Heather Murdock
DATELINE: NAJMOOK, Iraq
VIDEOGRAPHER: Hamode Altaee, Assad Niazi
VIDEO EDITOR:
SCRIPT EDITORS: LR, pcd
VIDEO SOURCES: VOA ORIGINAL, REUTERS
PLATFORMS: WEB __ TV x_ RADIO X_
TRT: 2:39
VID APPROVED BY: Reifenrath
TYPE: TVPKG/RADIO
EDITOR NOTES:))
((INTRO))
[[As officials in Dubai enter the final hours of the international climate conference, families in Iraq, one of world’s most impacted countries, are being forced to abandon their farms as villages get swallowed by desert. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports with Halan Akoiy.]]
((NARRATOR))
Iraq’s countryside has long suffered from climate change, with regional temperatures rising roughly 1.5% Celsius since the 1990s, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The rise has made the country unlivable in many places.
This well used to supply water for several villages. Now it is dried up, like the nearby river. Many crops cannot grow, and even farm animals do not have enough to eat.
[[RADIO VERSION: This is Mahmoud Hawassin Mohammed, an Iraqi farmer. He says the loss of the well water affected him in every way. He says the whole area was affected, even the livestock and people sold their animals. He says he doesn’t know how to fight back. The whole area, he says, has become dry.]]
((Mahmoud Hawassin Mohammed, Iraqi Farmer)) ((Male in Arabic))
“It affected me in every way. The whole area was affected. Even the livestock, everything, the people sold their animals. I don't know how to fight back in this situation. The whole area has become dry.”
((NARRATOR))
Mohammed says it has been seven years since he was able to profit from farming and many people in this region have abandoned their land and moved to the nearest city, Mosul.
There, they find not enough low-paying jobs in the beleaguered city, still not fully recovered from war six years after it ended.
And aid workers say life is even harder for people in southern Iraq, where rising temperatures and the increasing frequency of desert sandstorms have driven thousands of people from their homes in recent years.
((RADIO VERSION: Sadiq Mahdi of the Social Care Organization in Iraq says that as rain has decreased, temperatures have risen, sandstorms have increased, and the trees have become sparse. Mahdi says that as that as the temperature has risen, the water has decreased, which he says has affected the agricultural sector.]]
((Sadiq Mahdi, Health and Social Care Organization in Iraq)) ((Male in Arabic))
“Rainfall has decreased, the temperature has risen, sandstorms have increased, and the trees have decreased. The temperature has risen, and the water has decreased, which has affected the agricultural sector.”
((NARRATOR))
Many years of international efforts have done little, if anything, to stop the rising temperatures in Iraq, he says.
But Mohammed, the farmer, says he won’t move, yet, even as some neighbors are giving up on farming.
((FOR RADIO: Again Mohammed, the farmer. He says he and others planted 60 to 70 tons of wheat, but he says there was no rain last year and none this year.))
((Mahmoud Hawassin Mohammed, Iraqi Farmer)) ((Male in Arabic))
“We planted about 60-70 tons of wheat. But there was no rain last year and none this year.”
((NARRATOR))
He says his children are looking elsewhere to make a living, as they see no future here. But options are limited, he says. After decades of war and humanitarian crises, the flight of agricultural workers into the cities is driving those cities deeper into poverty, which is already crippling the country.
((Heather Murdock with Halan Akoiy, VOA News, in Najmook Village in Iraq))
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