DHI QAR, Iraq: Iraq’s buffalo population has more than halved in a decade as the country’s two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, suffer severe droughts that endanger the livelihood of many farmers and breeders.
“People have left ... We are a small number of houses remaining,” said farmer Sabah Ismail, 38, who rears buffalo in the southern province of Dhi Qar.
“The situation is difficult ... I had 120 to 130 buffalo; now I only have 50 to 60. Some died, and we sold some because of the drought,” said Ismail while tending his herd.
Buffalo have been farmed for centuries in Iraq for their milk, and are mentioned in ancient Sumerian inscriptions from the region.
According to Iraqi marshland experts, the root causes of the water crisis driving farmers out of the countryside are climate change, upstream damming in Turkiye and Iran, outdated domestic irrigation techniques and a lack of long-term management plans.
The country has also endured decades of warfare, from conflict with Iran in the 1980s, through two Gulf Wars to the recent rise and fall of the Daesh group.
Located within the cultivable lands known as the Fertile Crescent that have been farmed for millennia, the Iraqi landscape has suffered from upstream damming of the Tigris and Euphrates and lower rainfall, threatening the lifestyle of farmers like Ismail and leading many to move to the cities.
Iraqi marshland expert Jassim Assadi told Reuters that the number of buffalo in Iraq had fallen since 2015 from 150,000 to fewer than 65,000.
The decline is “mostly due to natural reasons: the lack of needed green pastures, pollution, illness ... and also farmers refraining from farming buffalos due to scarcity of income,” Assadi said.
A drastic decline in crop production and a rise in fodder prices have also left farmers struggling to feed their animals.
The difficulty of maintaining a livelihood in Iraq’s drought-stricken rural areas has contributed to growing migration toward the country’s already-choked urban centers.
“This coming summer, God only knows, the mortality rate may reach half,” said Abdul Hussain Sbaih, 39, an Iraqi buffalo breeder.
Droughts in Iraq endanger buffalo, and farmers’ livelihoods
https://arab.news/yb8mc
Droughts in Iraq endanger buffalo, and farmers’ livelihoods
- “People have left ... We are a small number of houses remaining,” said farmer Sabah Ismail
- Buffalo have been farmed for centuries in Iraq for their milk
Israeli attacks on Lebanon kill four, including security officer and child
- Lebanon’s health ministry says Israeli strike on village of Yanuh in the south killed three people
- Israeli gunfire also killed one person in the border village of Aita Al-Shaab
BEIRUT: Israeli attacks on Lebanon killed four people on Monday including a Lebanese security forces member and his child, hours after the Israeli army seized a member of Islamist group Jamaa Islamiya.
Israel frequently strikes Lebanon despite a November 2024 ceasefire aimed at ending more than a year of hostilities with militant group Hezbollah.
On Monday, Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli strike on the village of Yanuh in the south killed three people.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted Ahmad Ali Salameh, who it alleged was Hezbollah’s head of artillery and had been working to restore the group’s capabilities.
In addition to Salameh, the strike killed a member of Lebanon’s security forces and his three-year-old child, who were passing by, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA).
The Israeli military said the incident was “under review” after it was made “aware of the claim that uninvolved civilians were killed.”
Later on Monday, the health ministry reported that Israeli gunfire killed one person in the border village of Aita Al-Shaab, with the Israeli military saying it killed a Hezbollah member.
It alleged he was “gathering intelligence on (Israeli) troops and operated to rehabilitate Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in southern Lebanon.”
In addition to recurring attacks, the Israeli army still has troops deployed on five border positions in Lebanon it deems strategic.
Monday’s incidents come hours after the Jamaa Islamiya group, an ally of Palestinian militants Hamas, accused Israel of seizing one of its officials, Atwi Atwi, from his home in the Hasbaya district, south Lebanon, and taking him to an unknown location.
The group, which has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks against Israel during the war with Hezbollah, condemned “the Israeli occupation forces’ infiltration.”
The Israeli military said that it “apprehended a senior terrorist” in the group who was then “transferred for further questioning in Israeli territory.”
Atwi’s capture came hours after Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam completed a two-day visit to the south, which suffered extensive damage during the conflict with Hezbollah, with thousands displaced.
Salam in a statement condemned Atwi’s “abduction,” calling it a “blatant attack on Lebanese sovereignty, a violation of the ceasefire agreement and “a breach of international law.”
Hezbollah meanwhile called on the state to “take deterrent measures and firm and clear positions, and to act immediately at all political, diplomatic and legal levels, and to work seriously to protect citizens.”
Lebanon accuses Israel of having abducted several other citizens since the start of the hostilities.
Hezbollah lawmaker Hussein Al-Hajj Hassan said last month that Israel was holding “20 Lebanese prisoners,” alleging 10 had been abducted “inside Lebanese territory after the ceasefire.”
Lebanon says Israel must release these detainees and withdraw from the border positions it retains, in addition to halting air strikes on Lebanon.
