“I cannot lie at this age. I have not taken a shower since about a week after Eid al-Adha,” 75-year-old Azima Ali told Rudaw. She and her elderly husband suffer from chronic diseases. She said that they have purchased water several times, although her son is a labourer and they hardly make ends meet.
Some 150 houses in the Badawa neighborhood have had water shortages since the beginning of July. Some have relied on neighbors and others have purchased water with much higher prices than before.
The protesters blocked 100 meter road. They were later visited by Erbil Mayor Nabaz Abdulhamid who announced that they had found a quick solution.
“They have an issue with well 7. We sent a team there who informed us that the well has dried up. There is only one solution: digging a substitute well. We will dig this well in 28 hours or less,” he told reporters.
Governor Omed Khoshnaw later told Rudaw that “we have decided to provide water with tankers as a rapid response and begin digging a new well on Thursday.”
Khoshnaw said on Sunday that they had resolved Erbil’s water issue by rerouting water from three key sources that were dirtied by recent rains. However, this did not resolve water issues in areas like Badawa where the source of water is partially from wells.
As a result of recent rain in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region, the Great Zab River, which supplies one-third of water to the city of Erbil, has been affected by flash floods.
Water shortages in the Kurdistan Region have also been attributed to poor water management and inadequate funding. In June, a budget of 2.5 billion dinars ($1.7 million) was allocated in June by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for drinking water.
Reporting by Halabja Saadun
