BAGHDAD: Summer has come early for Iraq this year with temperatures hitting 49 degrees Celsius (topping 120 degrees Fahrenheit) in the southern city of Basra on Thursday, the national weather center said.

“It is the highest temperature recorded in Iraq this year,” weather center spokesperson Amer Al-Jabiri told AFP.

He said the early heat was in contrast to last year, when the temperature was “relatively good” in May and “it only began to rise in June.”

In Iraq, summer temperatures often exceed 50 degrees Celsius, especially in July and August, and sometimes reach these levels earlier.

On Sunday, two cadets died and others were admitted to hospital with heat stroke at a military academy in the southern province of Dhi Qar, authorities said.

The defense ministry said nine cadets “showed signs of fatigue and exhaustion due to sun exposure” while waiting to be assigned to battalions.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani ordered an investigation into the deaths of the two cadets.

Iraq is one of the five countries most impacted by some effects of climate change, according to the United Nations. It has also seen a prolonged drought and frequent dust storms.

ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said Syria’s government must keep focused on its deal with the Kurdish, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) under which it is to integrate into the Syrian armed forces, pressing Damascus for its implementation.

Speaking to reporters on a flight from Budapest, he said Turkiye, Syria, Iraq and the United States had a committee to discuss the fate of Daesh militants in prison camps in northeast Syria, which have been run by the SDF for years.

Ankara views the SDF and its factions as a terrorist group.

“We are especially following the YPG issue very, very closely. It is important for the Damascus administration not to take its attention away from this issue,” his office on Thursday cited him as saying. The YPG militia spearheads the SDF.

He added that Iraq should focus on the issue of the camps, as most women and children at the Al-Hol camp there were from Iraq and Syria, and that Iraq should repatriate its nationals.