Residents of the town of Nahr Omar, which is located next to several oil wells in southern Iraq, say that the flames rising from the towers spread toxins into the air, turning green into dry.

And a report published by the British Independent newspaper (INDEPENDENT) quoted experts that burning gas associated with oil extraction is the main factor in climate pollution, and it poses an imminent threat to the health of those living in the neighborhood, causing asthma, lung and skin diseases and cancer.

The report stated that Iraq is one of the countries most practicing these operations in the world, and Basra - the governorate in which the town of Nahr Omar is located - is the most affected region in the country.

Residents have denounced the seriousness of this daily practice, which kills children, the elderly and the vulnerable.

According to the mayor of Nahr Omar, cancer rates have increased over the past decade by 50%, with 150 cases among 1,600 residents.

Muhammad Hassan (43 years) says that when he took his 14-year-old son to the doctor, he found that he had bone marrow cancer, and when the doctor saw the curvature of his spine and his pale skin, he asked him where he lived, and when he knew that he was from Omar River, the doctor realized the seriousness of their health condition caused by pollution.

One of the Iraqi oil fields rising from burning gas and the water beside it appears polluted (Reuters)

Before it's too late

Across the country, chimneys light up the night sky as they pump out greenhouse gases like methane as well as air pollutants - including nitrous oxide (nitrogen dioxide), sulfur dioxide and soot - that will cause countless health problems for everyone who breathes it.

According to the latest data from the World Bank, Iraq burns more than 17 billion cubic meters of gas annually, ranking second after Russia.

The resulting CO2-equivalent emissions are equivalent to about 10% of total global emissions.

Although the country has gone through wars over two decades, Jassim Abdulaziz Hammadi, the technical deputy to the Ministry of Environment and Health, classifies air pollution as one of the biggest crises facing Iraq.

Even the Global Burden of Disease Study, the largest public health study in the world, found that more people have died from air pollution than have been recorded since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Energy analyst Ali Al-Saffar, from the International Energy Agency, describes the situation in Iraq as catastrophic, and says that instead of this gas playing a role in meeting the country's electricity needs, Iraq is among the few countries that burn gas and import it at the same time.

Al-Saffar added that academic studies indicate that the average temperature of Iraq is rising by two to 7 times compared to the global average, which threatens the country to exacerbate the problem of drought and water scarcity.

He called on the Iraqi authorities to be aware of the threat that the country may face and realize the importance of benefiting from gas instead of squandering it and harming people's health.

On a related matter, Wim Zwijnenberg, a researcher at the Dutch Peace Organization (PAX) and a contributor to the investigative journalism website "Bellingcat", said that Basra (southern Iraq) alone burns more gas than Saudi Arabia, China, India and Canada, because it is the home of the Rumaila oil field - the third largest field. Oil in the world - warning that Basra will be uninhabitable for the next ten years.

The pollution crisis is an unmistakable phenomenon in oil-rich Basra (Al-Jazeera)

They cannot breathe

The report mentioned that oil and gas pollution in Iraq is not limited to the south, as in the Qayyarah refinery in Nineveh Governorate in northern Iraq, a guard at the refinery, Ali (31 years old), talks about the severity of his cough, and says that he cannot breathe at night due to the large black smog that covers The city after 4 years of his work.

Like many areas in northern Iraq, Mosul suffers from pollution caused by continuous burning of gas.

According to Zwigenberg, the largest increase in the number of new gas burning facilities is in northern Iraq, with satellite images showing at least 6 sites across the oil field near Qayyarah, which is located on the western bank of the Tigris River.

Ghazwan Mustafa, an engineer at the local oil facility, says the toxic gases in the air have made many workers sick.

He himself is a cancer survivor and says that 20 others who have worked at the refinery have died since 2016.

He added, while standing next to the refinery, that recently, it was not possible for anyone to stand here because of the gas, and that they found dead birds lying on the ground.

At Qayyarah General Hospital, Adnan Abdel Razek, a member of the hospital’s administration, says that the most common illnesses in the hospital are respiratory and chest problems, adding that the water supply has been affected by soot, and sometimes black water spills from the taps.

In the capital, Baghdad, many refinery workers express their fear that their lives are in danger of contamination.

A worker at Dora refinery says that there are many cases of illness among workers, because the filtration system is very old, dilapidated and not suitable for the present time and large quantities of production, indicating that all workers are afraid and try to find other jobs.

Operation of power stations in Iraq depends in large part on importing gas from abroad (Al-Jazeera)

Waste gas and electricity need

The report pointed out that the cruel irony lies in the fact that many people suffer from the combustion of gas associated with the extraction of oil, while Iraq suffers from major power outages, and imports gas from abroad to run its electrical stations.

He added that in 2009, the giant oil company Shell estimated the wasted gas as it could produce 3,500 megawatts per day, or nearly 70% of Iraq's daily electricity production.

In the face of this, the Iraqi authorities promised to stop all associated gas flaring by 2022 so that it would be used as a power plant operator, but officials of the Environment Ministry in Basra admit that the date has been postponed to 2025.

In 2018, the authorities opened a new plant to reuse about 10 billion cubic meters annually of associated gas from 4 out of 15 oil fields in Basra, adding that they are currently working to double this capacity.

A spokesman for the Iraqi Oil Ministry, Asim Jihad, indicated that they are in the final stages of negotiations on many other stations with Chinese and American energy companies that can re-exploit between 3 billion and 6 billion cubic meters of associated gas annually from the Ratawi oil field.

However, industry experts still believed the deadline of 2025 was optimistic.

Jihad claims that it is "wrong" to link all cancer cases near the oil fields with the associated gas, indicating that more scientific studies are needed to find out the causes, explaining that there are other factors, such as the impact of wars on Iraq since 1980 and uranium and chemical weapons that have been used.

In Baghdad, the Technical Undersecretary for the Ministry of Health and Environment, Jasim Abdulaziz Hammadi, admits that it was an uphill battle. There was no cooperation between his ministry and the Ministry of Oil in the beginning, but over the past five years, his ministry has worked closely with the Ministry of Oil to combat climate change and air pollution.

He added that the epidemic spreading in Iraq has helped change views, and he hopes that this will lead to investment in public health and environmental protection.

Hammadi explained that his ministry is focusing on water security, food security, land degradation, desertification, and the increase in sandstorms.

Environmental protection advocates share the same concerns with the Ministry of Health, as Israa Falah, from the Tigris River Protectors Association, says, "Everything has worsened since 2018, warning of a mass exodus from polluted areas.