Rising heat drives crippling sandstorms across the Middle East
Drought and changing weather patterns feed stronger, longer dust storms, causing damage that costs the region $13 billion a year.
Over the past two months, Iraqis have been living, working and breathing in thick clouds of dust, as at least nine sandstorms – lasting up to several days each – have hit the country, blanketing everything in grit.
Hospitals have reported a surge in admissions, with thousands of patients coming in with severe respiratory illnesses, while schools and offices have had to close and flights have been grounded for days at a time.
“I can’t walk outside without coughing or covering my mouth,” Azzam Alwash, founder of non-governmental green group Nature Iraq, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from his home in Baghdad.
The latest storm “kept me in the house for two days. I have asthma, so I have to stay inside to protect my lungs,” he said.
