IRAQ: Disease alert after sewage system collapses

[donsu]

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=57064&SelectRegion=Middle_East&SelectCountry=IRAQ


Residents of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, are at risk of contracting a range of waterborne diseases as the city’s sewage system has collapsed after four days of heavy rain, the country’s health ministry said on Monday.

-snip-

"We can't use tap water for drinking or cooking. It’s all sewage. That is why I have put aside 100,000 Iraqi dinars to buy water for cooking and washing," said Abdullah, a father of five girls, from Baghdad's poor neighbourhood of Hurriyah.

(on edit: about $75 - for some reason this did info did not copy)

Dr Abdul-Rahman Adil Ali of the Baghdad Health Directorate warned of the dire consequences of a non-operational sewage system.

"As the sewage system has collapsed, all residents are threatened with gastroenteritis, typhoid fever, cholera, diarrhoea and hepatitis. In some of Baghdad's poor neighbourhoods, people drink water which is mixed with sewage," Ali said.

-snip-

“We can’t do our job because of the insurgents’ attacks against our employees. The insurgents are targeting the municipal workers and their cars in the streets,” Mowafaq Kittan, a media officer at Baghdad Municipality, said.

“About 600 of our workers were killed by insurgents over the past nine months. We need to be protected to do our job properly,” Kittan added.
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shouldn't our military be protecting them?

heavy rains wrecking another city.

(the sewage system needed upgraded, but how many cities in the world need upgraded sewage systems, including the US?)

[mod mom]

1. remember our pResident said they should be thanking us!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

2. yeah -- where's our thank you for all we have done

for them? :sarcasm:

I am so ashamed of the misery we have let be committed :banghead:

[soothsayer]

3. Better off catching the rainwater and drinking that

[underpants]

5. The massive sand storms will start in a few weeks

and Baghdad is not spared. Basically it is like snow days in the desert. Nothing moves.

[underpants]

6. Excuse me I was wrong the sandstorms usually start in May

my mistake

[Marie26]

4. They live in hell, don't they? nt