Baghdad: In the sizzling Baghdad heat, Mussa Abdallah takes to the Tigris river during the day to cool off, while others opt for ice skating to escape the relentless temperatures.
“At the end of the day, I’m sweaty and exhausted because of the sun,” said Abdallah, a 21-year-old house painter in the Iraqi capital.
“At home, there’s no electricity. If I want to wash, the water is scalding hot,” he added, describing how water stored above ground virtually boils at this time of year.
Iraq is grappling with a blistering summer, with temperatures often exceeding 50 degrees Celsius, exacerbated by declining rainfall, rampant desertification and frequent dust storms.
The United Nations ranks Iraq among the world’s five most climate-vulnerable nations.
Almost every day after work, Abdallah retreats to the Tigris to escape the sweltering heat.
“We’re young and want to have a good time — where else can we go?” the decorator said on the banks of the river, traces of white paint still visible on his temples and long-sleeved T-shirt.
While Abdallah puts his sandals back on, nearby others are taking the plunge and two bathers are washing their hair with soap.
As night brings little relief from the sweltering gusts, residents of Baghdad flock to the city’s lone indoor ice rink to find respite.
The rink is in one of the air-conditioned shopping malls that have sprung up in the capital in recent years, attracting up to 100 visitors on busy days, 25-year-old instructor Sajjad Mohamed said.
“Twenty-four hours a day, the electricity never goes out. There’s a cooling system” for the ice, Mohamed said.
Abbas, 26, discovered ice skating in Turkiye. Now back in Iraq, he is pursuing it enthusiastically.
“When we finish work in the afternoon, it’s either go home, or go to shopping malls and other places where it’s cold,” he said.
The soaring seasonal temperatures have become a troubling fact of life for the overwhelming majority of Iraq’s 43 million inhabitants.
Although it is rich in oil, Iraq has seen its infrastructure suffer after decades of conflict and failed public policy that has resulted in long power cuts on the public grid with generators unable to handle the strain.
On the banks of the Tigris, Rashid Al-Rashed takes off his T-shirt to dive into the Tigris.
“At home it’s hot, I can’t stay there for long. The public electricity is inadequate,” the 17-year-old garbage collector said.
To escape the heat, “I bathe every day, for 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour,” he added.
Elsewhere on the river, a police boat moves along a dozen bathers from the water for their safety.
“When we make them leave, they come back,” said a policeman, seeking to explain everything was being done to prevent deaths from drownings.
But the danger is evident. On his phone, he displays the body of an 11-year-old boy found nearly 48 hours after drowning.
While the river — despite its danger — is free, those with more means can pay $10 for an afternoon with family or friends at Baghdad Aqua Park.
“This year summer came earlier, so we have more visitors,” one of the water park’s administrators Ali Yussef said. “People are coming after work or school,” he added.
Maitham Mahdi, 31, was on his second visit of the month. “I think I’ll be coming a lot during the summer,” the civil servant, still dressed in his swimsuit, said as he departed the indoor pool.
Mahdi also complained about the electricity at home. “We come here to get a bit of fresh air,” he explained.
Iraq has just gone through four years of drought, marked by water shortages and a drastic drop in river flow.
But on the back of a wet winter, officials are hoping the more generous rainfall will have a knock-on effect over the summer.
Despite those hopes, however, the thermometer continues to climb.
The meteorological service is forecasting 50 degrees Celsius this week in the capital and southern cities such as Basra and Nasiriyah.
Its director, Amer Al-Jaberi, said with its semi-desert climate, Iraq is expecting “heat waves,” particularly in the south, adding these intensifying phenomena are also the result of climate change.
Iraqis flock to river or ice rink to escape searing heat
https://arab.news/rj49d
Iraqis flock to river or ice rink to escape searing heat
- Iraq is grappling with a blistering summer, with temperatures often exceeding 50 degrees Celsius
- The United Nations ranks Iraq among the world’s five most climate-vulnerable nations
Clashes in Sudan’s El-Fasher kill 57: medical source
PORT SUDAN: Clashes between Sudanese paramilitaries and the regular army have killed at least 57 civilians in the besieged Darfur city of El-Fasher, a medical source and a volunteer aid group said Thursday.
The resistance committee, a volunteer aid group, said the civilians were killed on Wednesday in clashes and shelling of the city by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023.
Clashes between Sudanese paramilitaries and the regular army have killed at least 57 civilians in the besieged Darfur city of El-Fasher, a medical source and a volunteer aid group said Thursday. (AP/File)
Mediator Qatar says Israel ‘did not abide’ by Gaza truce deal
- Israel had converted 30 percent of the Gaza Strip into a buffer zone in the widening air and ground offensive
MOSCOW: Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani said Thursday that Israel had failed to respect January’s ceasefire agreement in Gaza, as he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
“As you know, we reached an agreement months ago, but unfortunately Israel did not abide by this agreement,” said the ruler of Qatar, a key mediator of the deal.
A truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, brokered by Qatar with Egypt and the United States, came into force on January 19, largely halting more than 15 months of fighting triggered by Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
The inital phase of the truce ended in early March, with the two sides unable to agree on the next steps. Israel resumed air and ground attacks across the Gaza Strip on March 18 after earlier halting the entry of aid.
Israel said Wednesday that it had converted 30 percent of Gaza into a buffer zone in the widening offensive.
Sheikh Tamim said Qatar would “strive to bridge perspectives in order to reach an agreement that ends the suffering of the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza.”
Putin recognized Qatar’s “serious efforts to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict” and called deaths in the conflict “a tragedy.”
“A long-term settlement can only be achieved on the basis of the UN resolution and first of all connected to the establishment of two states,” he added.
Israel’s renewed assault has so far killed at least 1,691 people in Gaza, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reported, bringing the overall toll since the war erupted to 51,065, most of them civilians.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Lebanon says one killed in Israeli strike in south
- The health ministry said: “the raid carried out by the Israeli enemy on the locality of Aitaroun left one dead“
- Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, insists it is adhering to the ceasefire
BEIRUI: Lebanon reported Thursday that one person was killed by an Israeli air strike in the country’s south, hours after Israel said it had attacked sites there belonging to Hezbollah.
The health ministry said: “the raid carried out by the Israeli enemy on the locality of Aitaroun left one dead,” a day after Israeli strikes in the same region killed two people.
The Israeli military said earlier that it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites” in southern Lebanon overnight, without offering details.
The military added that it would “operate against any attempts by Hezbollah to rebuild or establish a military presence under the guise of civilian cover.”
Despite a November 27 ceasefire that sought to halt more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes in Lebanon.
Hezbollah, significantly weakened by the war, insists it is adhering to the ceasefire, even as Israeli attacks persist.
Rocket fire from Lebanon into Israel has also been reported since the truce was struck, although no group has claimed responsibility for the launches.
On Wednesday, the Lebanese army said it had arrested several people suspected of firing rockets at Israel from Lebanon.
A security official told AFP that three of those detained were members of Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas.
‘Help us,’ says wife of Gaza medic missing since ambulance attack
- Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in the attack
KHAN YUNIS: More than three weeks after an Israeli military ambush killed 15 of her husband’s fellow medics, Nafiza Al-Nsasrah says she still has no idea where he is being held.
“We have no information, no idea which prison he’s in or where he is being held, or what his health condition is,” Nsasrah told AFP, showing a photograph of her husband Asaad in his medic’s uniform at the wheel of an ambulance.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Sunday that Nsasrah was in Israeli custody after being “forcibly abducted” when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a convoy of ambulances on March 23.
In the early hours of that day, Israeli soldiers ambushed a convoy of ambulances and a firetruck near the southern city of Rafah as the crew responded to emergency calls.
Eight staff members from the Red Crescent, six from the Gaza civil defense agency and one employee of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees were killed in the attack, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA.
Their bodies were found buried in the sand near the site of the shooting in the Tal Al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah, in what OCHA described as a mass grave.
One member of the crew survived the attack. He was initially detained by troops but subsequently released.
The Palestinian Red Crescent was able to recover footage of part of the attack filmed by one of the medics on his mobile phone before he was gunned down.
An Israeli military official told journalists that the soldiers who fired at the ambulances “thought they had an encounter with terrorists.”
The video footage contradicts that account as the ambulances had their lights blinking when they came under attack.
“At the time of the incident, we had no idea what had happened,” Nsasrah said in the plastic-sheet shelter in the southern city of Khan Yunis which she and her family have called home for nearly a year.
Her husband’s body was not among those found in the mass grave near Rafah.
“We heard some ambulances had been surrounded (by the Israeli army), so we called (the Red Crescent) because (my husband) was late to return from his shift,” the 43-year-old said.
“They told us that he was surrounded but didn’t know what had happened exactly.”
Afterwards, the Red Crescent told her that he had been detained by Israeli forces.
“We felt a little relieved but not completely because detainees often face torture. So we are still afraid,” Nsasrah said, her voice drowned out by the persistent buzz of an Israeli surveillance drone overhead.
When the Red Crescent announced he had been detained, AFP reached out to the Israeli military for confirmation.
The military responded by referring AFP to an earlier statement noting that armed forces chief Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir had ordered a thorough investigation into the attack.
The March 23 killings occurred days into a renewed Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory and drew international condemnation.
The Palestinian Red Crescent has charged that Israeli soldiers shot the medics in their upper body with “intent to kill.”
Nsasrah, her husband and their six children have been living under canvas in Khan Yunis since May last year.
Despite the hardship, she remains determined to get her husband back.
“I call on the international community to help us get any information on Asaad Al-Nsasrah,” she said.
“I ask to obtain information about his health condition and to allow us to visit him or to help us get him released.”
Iranian foreign minister to discuss Iran-US nuclear talks during Moscow visit
- The US and Iran held talks in Oman last weekend that both sides described as positive and constructive
- Russia, a longstanding ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding UN Security Council member
MOSCOW: Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sent his foreign minister to Russia on Thursday with a letter for Russian President Vladimir Putin, aiming to shore up support from Moscow ahead of a second round of nuclear negotiations with the United States.
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran with bombing and extending tariffs to third countries that buy its oil if Tehran does not come to an agreement with Washington over its disputed nuclear program. The United States has moved additional warplanes into the region.
The US and Iran held talks in Oman last weekend that both sides described as positive and constructive. Ahead of a second round of talks set to take place in Rome this weekend, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Wednesday that Iran’s right to enrich uranium is not negotiable.
Russia, a longstanding ally of Tehran, plays a role in Iran’s nuclear negotiations with the West as a veto-wielding UN Security Council member and a signatory to an earlier nuclear deal Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.
“Regarding the nuclear issue, we always had close consultations with our friends China and Russia. Now it is a good opportunity to do so with Russian officials,” Araqchi told state TV. He said he was conveying a letter to Putin that discussed regional and bilateral issues.
Western powers say Iran is refining uranium to a high degree of fissile purity beyond what is justifiable for a civilian energy program and close to the level suitable for an atomic bomb. Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons and says it has a right to a civilian nuclear program.
Moscow has bought weapons from Iran for the war in Ukraine and signed a 20-year strategic partnership deal with Tehran earlier this year, although it did not include a mutual defense clause. The two countries were battlefield allies in Syria for years until their ally Bashar Assad was toppled in December.
Putin has kept on good terms with Khamenei as both Russia and Iran are cast as enemies by the West, but Moscow is keen not to trigger a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Russia has said that any military strike against Iran would be illegal and unacceptable. The Kremlin on Tuesday declined to comment when asked if Russia was ready to take control of Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium as part of a possible future nuclear deal between Iran and the United States.
