Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Humanitarian Crisis Looms In Basra

Juan Cole 07/31/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Humanitarian Crisis looms in Basra

Reuters reports that a high UN official has raised the specter of a serious humanitarian crisis (i.e. lots of people dying) in Basra this summer. The problem is that there is only half as much potable water as people need for a population of 1.3 million, and the temperature has soared to 50 C / 122 F. Reuters writes:


“We are confronting a potential serious humanitarian crisis,” Ross Mountain, acting special representative of the U.N. Secretary General for Iraq, told Reuters in Amman on Thursday.

“We have no indication that there is anywhere else in the country that is facing this kind of crisis. Nobody is facing 50 degree (Celsius) temperatures with less than half the supply of water required … There is nowhere as bad as the Basra area.”

Lack of potable water in a city like Basra can cause large numbers of deaths in several ways. Simple e. coli bacteria in the water can give babies and small children diarrhea so bad that they can easily die of it if parents don’t know how to keep them hydrated (spoonfuls of filtered, boiled water with sugar and salt in it will usually work). You could also get a cholera epidemic and hepatitis. And, if people run out of boiled water because they lack or can’t afford fuel to prepare more, they can be driven by the 122 temperatures to risk drinking bad water.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....