Thick sandstorms sweep across Iraq leaving thousands struggling to breathe

Thousands of people across Iraq have been treated in hospital with breathing problems after the country was blanketed by another sandstorm.

The latest storm, the fifth in the space of a month, also saw flights in and out of Baghdad airport suspended for several hours as residents were urged to stay indoors.

Iraqis awoke to an ochre-coloured sky, with a thick blanket of dust covering roads and buildings with an orange film. Visibility was low and drivers had to keep car headlights on to see properly.

The country is prone to seasonal sandstorms, but experts and officials have become alarmed over their frequency in recent years.

Most Iraqis say that cannot remember experiencing so many storms in such a short space of time.

Experts have said they have been exacerbated by record-low rainfall, desertification and climate change.

However, Azzam Alwash, head of the Nature Iraq non-profit organization, warned that ‘climate change alone doesn’t give the whole picture’ and that inappropriate farming practices and mismanagement of water resources have contributed to the problems.

He said: ‘Climate change has become a very convenient excuse for officials to avoid responsibility for not taking action over the last 20 to 40 years.’

Desertification, resulting from old irrigation practices dating back to the Sumerian age, and rising water salinity are also factors, he said, adding: ‘These are policy issues.’

The World Bank has warned that Iraq could suffer a 20% drop in water resources by 2050.

Issa al-Fayad, an official with the Environment Ministry, said the country could face 272 days of sandstorms a year in the coming decades.

During the latest storm, which began overnight on Thursday and covered the capital Baghdad and many other areas in a thick haze, at least 3,000 people sought medical help, hospital workers in several governorates said.

At the Sheikh Zayed Hospital, people lined up outside the emergency room and staff stocked up on medication as weather forecasts predicted the storms would continue throughout May.

Ayat Haitham, a nurse, was busy treating patients but also tried to reassure them that all the drugs used for treating breathing difficulties and also oxygen were ‘available in big quantities’.

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