IN PICTURES: Erbil highway a labor of strong will and determination

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – On a hot August day, with temperatures reaching almost 40⁰C, a group of workers toils under the sun to complete one of the Kurdistan Region’s most ambitious infrastructure projects yet: a nearly 40-kilometer-long six-lane highway surrounding the capital of Erbil.

The highway, which is intended to reduce congestion inside the city and cut down travel time, has already opened and is known as 120-Meter Road. Toiling on the median, however, dozens of men can be seen installing street lights in the summer’s daytime hours and dozens more immersed in other aspects of the roadway's completion.

The work is unforgiving as laborers cover their faces and bodies despite the intense heat to protect themselves from the sun, the dust stirred up by cars whizzing by, and the rubble kicked up by heavy machinery operating on 120-Meter Road.

For traffic police officer Soran Mohammed Fauziya, his job has only become harder since work on the highway began. Speaking to Kurdistan 24, the traffic police veteran of 11 years says he is managing more congested roads due to the constant rerouting of vehicles in his area because of roadwork to complete the highway.

In this economy, however, Fauziya notes he is very happy with his job, which has him standing in the sun from 7 in the morning to the early afternoon hours.

Similarly, construction workers Ali Sayif-al-Din and Khalid Ahmedi, both expressed their gratefulness to have found employment despite the economic crisis in the Kurdistan Region, where they found refuge after fleeing neighboring Syria’s protracted civil war.

“I am 28 and from Qamishlo, but I’ve been working every night for over eight years on this project [120-Meter Road],” explained Ali. With his seventh grade education, the Syrian Kurd says he is pleased to have found employment here.

Khalid, who is also from Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan), says his USD800 salary and 9-hour work days are difficult, but worth it.

Before returning to his duties, he remarked, “I am happy to have this job."

The Kurdistan Region has been facing a financial crisis since 2014 in which many public sector employees saw their salaries delayed or drastically reduced under austerity measures. Nevertheless, the Kurdistan Region, and Iraq in general, heavily rely on a foreign workforce for manual labor, service industry jobs, and highly-specialized technical work.