In winter, we drown in rainwater; in summer, we’re devoured by insects and heat. We don’t have enough to eat. My daughter ...

Basra, sitting on the Shatt Al-Arab waterway, was once known as the “Venice of the East” because of its system of canals, canals now brimming with rubbish. Not long ago it was a prosperous ...

A couple crosses a bridge over a crumbling canal. Piles of rubbish lie in their way. It is summer. "Take pictures. Show the world what Basra has become," swears one old man, holding his nose.

Researchers found thousands of ancient irrigation canals up to 5.6 miles (9 kilometers) long carved into the landscape near ...

A salt production factory in the southern Iraqi province of Basra welcomes the heat as summer temperatures start to rise.

Basra’s once-pristine freshwater canals are clogged with garbage and sewage. A combination of a lack of rainfall and the construction of upstream dams in Turkey, Syria, and Iran, in addition to ...

there is a degree of normality to life in Basra that eludes many other Iraqi cities. After the heat of the day has eased, men crowd into cafes along the canals to drink tea and smoke water pipes ...

"Look, this is the flower of Basra," Saeed Riyadh, a day laborer, says sarcastically, pointing to one of thousands of plastic bottles bobbing on sewage-infused water in a canal that runs along ...

Almost simultaneously, local people 15 miles north of Basra tore down dikes along a canal at the south end of the marsh, allowing water to flow from the Shatt-al-Arab, the waterway at the entrance ...

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) - When Iraqi merchant Jabar Mohamed was growing up in the southern port city of Basra, he liked to watch boats gliding along a canal lined with palm trees and ancient ...