Sulaimani International Airport suspends flights due to sand storm

Dler S. Mohammed 2022/04/07 21:34

Sand storm in the Kurdistan Region's Sulaimani province, Apr. 7, 2022. (Photo: Hawzhin Jamal/Kurdistan 24)

Kurdistan Sand storm Kurdistan Region Sulaimani International Airport Weather

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The Kurdistan Region’s Sulaimani International Airport suspended all flights on Thursday due to the heavy sand storm battering the autonomous region and northern Iraq.

“Because of the heavy sand storm currently hitting the Kurdistan Region’s provinces that reduced the range of vision, we suspended all flights to and from Sulaimani International Airport,” read a statement from the airport on Thursday night.

“Flights will be resumed when the sand storm ends,” the statement added.

Erbil International Airport also suspended all its flights on Thursday due to the sand storm.

Officials in the neighboring northern Iraqi province of Nineveh also declared Thursday a day off because of the extreme weather.

In recent years, increased desertification in Iraq has contributed to an uptick in such storms. Iraqi officials expect further increases in the dusty weather in the coming years.

On Tuesday, Essa Raheem Dakheel Al-Fayadh, the Director-General at the Iraqi Ministry of Health and Environment, warned that Iraq would experience a vast increase in the number of dust storms in the country in the next 20 years.