Trinkwassermangel an Schulen im Irak

Die Wasserkrise im Irak verschärft sich weiter: Laut einer Schule haben fast die Hälfte aller Schulen im Land keinen Zugang zu Trinkwasser.

Die Hiobsbotschaften über die katastrophale Wasserknappheit im Irak, dem Zweistromland, reißen nicht ab. Weniger als die Hälfte der Wasservorräte als noch vor zwanzig Jahren sollen noch zur Verfügung stehen und die Krise trifft nun immer mehr Bereiche des täglichen Lebens.

So sollen einer neuen Studie zufolge inzwischen die Hälfte aller Schulen im Land keinen Zugang mehr zu Trinkwasser haben:

“These surveys show that drinking water is not available in 50 percent of schools in Iraq,” Khateeb said.

According to Khateeb, schools are facing water scarcity due to the sharing of buildings among multiple schools with different schedules, an issue which is affecting over 1,000 students in each school who are unable to access water. Furthermore, the lack of safe toilets in schools is discouraging students, especially teenage girls, from attending.

As part of the five-year plan co-championed with the Iraqi government, UNICEF is currently implementing over 300 projects in schools and local communities with the aim of providing drinking water to students. This initiative also seeks to support students in continuing their studies, Khatib said. 

“Among these projects are consumption rationalization projects and the installation of solar energy systems to provide a complete lighting and a ventilation system inside schools that ensures the delivery of electrical power to some Iraqi schools,” he said, adding that they have completed the installation of solar energy systems in more than 150 out of 250 schools all over the country, including the Kurdistan Region’s provinces. 

The UNICEF chief of WASH also said that according to a 2022 complete environmental survey conducted in partnership with the Iraqi planning ministry and the KRG’s municipalities and tourism ministry, only 60 percent of Iraqis have access to drinking water despite 84 percent having access to drinking water sanitation services, adding that there is a huge difference between the services in urban and rural areas.

Iraq is currently facing a general water shortage, according to Khateeb. The southern provinces of the country are the most severely impacted, particularly those that rely on the Euphrates River. The water levels have significantly decreased in provinces such as Anbar, Diwaniyah, Muthanna, and Dhi Qar. Additionally, there is a lack of water also in the Kurdistan Region, especially in the capital city of Erbil, which relies on groundwater.

“The decrease in the level [of groundwater] affected the sustainability of the provision of drinking water in the Kurdistan Region,” Khateeb said.