The authorities in Al-Diwaniyah Governorate (southern Iraq) announced the death of large numbers of fish due to their poisoning, after nearly two years of a similar disaster in several Iraqi provinces south of the country.
The same source stated in a statement that a joint team has been formed from the Provincial Environment Directorate and the Directorate of Agriculture, after news of the existence of poisoning poisoning in the general estuary, noting that the committee monitored the presence of dead fish in large numbers on the general downstream column and the feeding gates of Al-Dalmaj marsh.
A group of dead fish has been detected inside the Al-Dalmaj / Al-Diwaniyah marsh, and the most likely cause is the use of toxins in fishing.
The use of toxins in hunting is considered to be internationally prohibited because it affects the environment and nature of water or marshes, as well as the human being.
Monitoring date 8/220/220 # protectors - Tigris # environmental monitoring network pic.twitter.com/s4LU0r9o4B
Tigris protectors Humat Dijlah (@ hdijlah1) August 3, 2020
The poison throwing area is more than 25 km north of the general downstream column, and there are no observation points.
Al-Diwaniya,
fish deaths, for the second day in Hor Al-Dalmaj pic.twitter.com/NLAfbCP4rr
- Adnan Awadh (@AdnanAwadh) August 4, 2020
It is noteworthy that several governorates in central and southern Iraq witnessed a similar catastrophe in November 2018, with thousands of tons of fish suddenly dying in farms in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers south of the country.
The World Health Organization announced at that time that the results of its preliminary laboratory tests showed that some areas of the Euphrates were exposed to pollution with a high content of heavy metals and ammonia.
Al-Jazeera Net then published a video clip that narrates the full story of this disaster.
Iraqis depend a lot on fish as a major food item for their tables, so the consequences of this crisis did not stop at the owners of the farms and their great material losses, but rather reached the general public, especially after many of them at the time were reluctant to buy fish for fear of disease.