VIDEO: Family of 12 left with only tractor after flood submerge house and land

A Kurdish family was forced to evacuate their home after floods nearly submerged their whole house in the aftermath of heavy rainfall in the Kurdistan Region’s Dukan area.
kurdistan24.net

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A Kurdish family was forced to evacuate their home after floods nearly submerged their whole house in the aftermath of heavy rainfall in the Kurdistan Region’s Dukan area.

Over the past few days, the autonomous Kurdistan Region and Iraq have experienced high levels of rain which led to floods in various parts of the country, especially in the north.

The relentless rainfall also raised the water levels in Dukan Lake, causing damage to many nearby villages and towns.

Mohammed Hussein Ibrahim’s house is one that the water almost submerged entirely, forcing him and 11 other members of his family to evacuate in the middle of the night.

“We are a family of 12 and have always lived here, throughout all the seasons, relying on farming and livestock,” Ibrahim told Kurdistan 24 on Thursday while standing on the rooftop of his flooded house.

“I and the older generation had never seen the water level rise even close to the house,” he said, with a look of shock and despair on his face as he observed the damages to his house and farmland caused by the flood.

Ibrahim and his family now live hundreds of meters away from their home, in a makeshift shelter and with his tractor as their main possession.

Once a day, he visits his house by boat to feed the pigeons he kept there.

“It was midnight when we started to evacuate. We couldn’t take everything with us,” Maryam Mohammed told Kurdistan 24.

Ibrahim says many nearby villagers had their fields and farms damaged by flood, but not to the extent he suffered.

“The flood took my farm and my house,” he added.

Editing by Nadia Riva