Cancer hits residents of Iraqi oil city of Basra
The cancer rate has been on the rise in the Iraqi oil-rich province of Basra, and many blame this on increasing pollution and on depleted uranium dust from weapons used in the 1991 Gulf War.
The deputy governor of Basra province, Zahra al-Bijari, claimed June 6 that cancer rates have been growing dramatically in the province as a result of pollution, both from oil production and from depleted uranium dust that a doctor says is causing "another Hiroshima."
The province of Basra is registering 800 new cases of cancer per month, according to Iraq's High Commission for Human Rights, which attributed the cause to “multiple reasons, including environmental pollutants, whether in the air such as emanating from oil combustion, in water and soil, and resulting from effects of war.”
Basra, in the far south of Iraq, is known for its oil reserves. For more than a year now, the province has been plagued by a “health crisis” of illnesses and injuries associated with water, air and soil pollution, decades-old land mines and the rise of cancer cases.
At a May 20 parliament session, a member of parliament from Basra, Faleh Khazali said, “The water, air and soil in the province of Basra are all contaminated. There are 18 sites of radioactive materials that have not been processed so far, as well as the unprocessed gas associated with oil exploration. Add to this the existence of remnants of war in the waters off the Shatt al-Arab beach and the pollution of rivers in the center of Basra.”
