Hussein Said, a resident of the Azadi neighborhood in the center of Shingal (Sinjar), told Rudaw that there is frequently no water in his house.
“Ask anyone in the neighborhood if they have purchased water or not. [We have to buy water] once every two days, especially in summer because, as you know, in summer we use coolers and use water for washing. In winter, we buy water once every five days,” he said.
Shingal is the homeland of Yazidis who were subjected to heinous atrocities and massacres when the Islamic State (ISIS) captured the region in 2014 and committed genocide. ISIS was declared territorially defeated in Iraq in 2017, but reconstruction of Shingal has been slow.
Other damaged neighborhoods of the city and the eastern outskirts are experiencing similar shortages.
Salih Ado, another resident, said they have gone hours without water.
“Project water doesn’t reach us at all,” he said. “We hope they will properly establish the water project for us.”
Local officials have been unsuccessfully trying to convince the government to build new water infrastructure in the district for years, according to Mahdi Qassim, head of Shingal’s water department.
“We submitted the Azad-Weranshar project in 2023 to the governor’s office,” he told Rudaw, adding that the provincial authorities initially approved the project, dedicating 629 million dinars for it. However, for unknown reasons, it was never built.
Iraq is facing its worst water crisis in eight decades as national reserves have plummeted to unprecedented lows, Khaled Shamal, spokesperson for the Iraqi water ministry, said on Sunday. The crisis has been exacerbated by five consecutive years of drought, soaring temperatures, and upstream dams in neighboring Turkey and Iran that have sharply reduced volumes in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - Iraq’s primary water sources.
In March, Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani announced the launch of 14 infrastructure and rehabilitation projects in Shingal and Nineveh.