Piles of garbage accumulated across some of Baghdad’s neighborhoods have left many residents in the Iraqi capital fed up.
“This is the path of the visitors to [the shrine of] Imam Musa Kazim. It is left in ruins,” says Abu Muqtada, a resident of the city’s al-Disem neighborhood.
“The municipal garbage truck doesn’t come to collect garbage. The situation is tough. There is no water, no electricity, no services are available in this neighborhood,” he added.
Recent complaints about the situation to Baghdad’s municipality have not produced change, with authorities blaming the country’s financial crisis on the lack of cleaning staff and garbage trucks.
Khaldoon Abbas, the Deputy Municipal Director of the Sadr City neighborhood, claims a population increase of the population has led to an unmanageable amount of waste in his neighborhood.
“Much more is needed than the current equipment and the number of workers and staff to control the amount of garbage in the Sadr City allows for,” said the local official, who says Baghdad’s general municipality has not allocated any money for garbage collection to the local authorities.
According to the municipality, a thousand tons of garbage are produced everyday in Sadr City alone.
Residents worry the dire sanitary conditions will spread diseases.
“Who would accept this situation? Which officials would accept it? Would the Municipality Director accept this? How is this possible? It will cause diseases to spread,” Hussein Ahmed, a resident of the Sadr City neighborhood, asked Rudaw.
A general lack of services, electricity, water, unemployment and poverty in Baghdad have led to a resurgence of daily protests in the capital and cities in the country’s south in recent weeks.
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