Iraqi Marshlands
Between
Amarah and Basrah along the South-Eastern border of Iraq and Iran, in what was
once the heart of the Mesopotamian cultures of Uruk and Ur (Ancient Mesopotamia, 2006) , a battle over water
and a way a life gets a little reprieve. The once lush marsh lands called the
Ahwar, “are unique, [being] as [they are] one of the world’s largest inland
delta systems, [surviving] in an extremely hot and arid environment” (Unesco, 2016) . Home to the Madaan,
or Marsh Arabs, for thousands of years (Wikipedia, 2016) the Madaan formed homes within the
marsh in reed houses and typically fell into one of three economic patterns:
those that raised buffalo and sold the milk for drinking and to make cheese,
those that spear fished, and those that farmed rice or harvested dates and
other wild foods (Ali, 2003) .
Traditionally subsistence farmers, since the 1970s Saddam Hussein systematically
moved to destroy their way of life.
