Poisoned water forces local football club in Basra to postpone match

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iraq’s al-Hussein football club on Monday suffered a bout of mass poisoning as players were hospitalized due to contaminated drinking water in Basra, resulting in the postponement of a match scheduled against the South Oil club.

The Al-Hussein club, on its official Facebook page, confirmed many of its players and staff members were poisoned in Basra on Monday night, including the coach, Fadhel Zaghir, after drinking tainted water.

The club was due to face its rival, South Oil club, in the second round of Iraq’s local league in the oil-rich city of Basra, located in the south of the country.

It also mentioned that the number of hospitalized players and staff was on the rise, including the club’s supervisor, Subhi al-Azzawi, with 13 cases of water poisoning in total registered.

“We will not be able to play [against the South Oil club] tomorrow [Monday],” Zaghir posted on his official Facebook account.

Basra, which accounts for 95 percent of Iraq’s oil exports, has been suffering from a lack of clean drinking water in the past few years, with the quality severely deteriorating over the past few months.

Since July 9, people in Basra have staged a number of protests, which later spread to other Iraqi cities, demanding better public services, clean water, regular electricity supply, employment, and an end to widespread corruption in Iraqi government institutions.

Last week, Iraq’s High Commission for Human Rights (IHCHR), a parliamentary body, announced that at least 60,000 people had suffered temporary poisoning from Basra’s contaminated water.

“We’re watching with concern as the adverse effects of pollution continue to mount in Basra, where we have documented 60,000 cases of temporary poisoning [due to tainted drinking water],” Mahdi al-Tamimi, head of the IHCHR’s Basra office, said.

“This is a serious environmental disaster affecting the lives of all Basra residents,” he added.

Editing by Nadia Riva