Haji Omaran, a town on the mountainous Iraq-Iran border, has experienced exceptionally heavy snowfall in recent days. The usually bustling border town has been left eerily quiet. Schools and other official institutions have shut their doors, and shops are markets are closed. Snow has piled up so high that it has jammed doors and windows, leaving some residents unable to leave their homes. Some have had to tunnel their way out. “If someone gets sick there is no aid here," said Sleman Baboli, chieftain of a nearby village. There were no shovels to clean the roads. If someone gets sick, how can we take him to the doctor?” A 10 kilometer stretch of the Hamilton Road running through the town is blocked by snow, so bulldozers and snow plows are working overtime to clear it. With roads obstructed and cars buried in the snow, people are crossing the Kurdistan Region and Iranian Kurdistan border by foot – a journey that can take hours. “I am going back from Erbil to Piranshahr [in Iran], I have an important job to do. I’ve been walking for two hours,” said tourist Hassan Mewludi. Weather conditions are expected to remain adverse, keeping access to the town difficult. “Roads are blocked and clearing them is difficult,” local mayor Ahmed Qadir said. "Haji Omaran has exceptional weather. The upcoming wind and storm comes may cause some obstacle for the teams.” Though mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region regularly experience considerable winter snowfall, this year’s wintry weather has been uncharacteristically severe. Snowfall impacted parts of Iraq that have not seen such weather in a decade, including Baghdad. Reporting by Bakhtiyar Qadir
