Rutba on the verge of a water crisis: clueless government with the drought looming

Shafaq News/ Once again, the specter of drought lurks around Rutba, west of Al-Anbar, while the local government is running in circles and fails to solve the city's ever-lasting water problem.

Every year, tens of thousands of Rutba's residents suffer from a significant shortage of potable, irrigation, and livestock water.

This brutal reality prompted activists and clerics to launch a campaign to dig wells inside the city to mitigate the situation and avoid last summer's crisis when many citizens temporarily displaced to other areas inside the governorate to escape the dilemma of water outages for days or even weeks.

According to activists, more than ten wells have been dug in the city over the past months, some of which are shared by several houses or even an entire street. Other wells were dug on sidewalks and public squares to be used by citizens. However, the city still needs at least 100 more wells to overcome the crisis.

The cost of digging a single well is 900-1,200 dollars, including the water pump and the filter, as the water in some wells is not clean and can cause diseases to the citizens.

As Summer approaches, accompanied by the holy month of Ramadan, during which people fast for 30 days, Rutba's residents started raising the alarms demanding the relevant authorities to rehabilitate the water pipes damaged during the war on ISIS. Obviously, the wells digging campaigns carried out by relief organizations in Rutba were not sufficient to meet the people's needs for water, according to Sulaiman Al-Kubaisi, head of Suhb Al-Ghaith Organization for Development and Humanitarian Relief.

Al-Kubaisi told Shafaq News agency, "Rutba has been suffering from water scarcity for many years. It relies heavily on wells even during the pre-2003 period. However, the battles to liberate the district from ISIS destroyed many major wells as well as Rutba's remaining water pumping pipes."

"As relief and humanitarian organizations, we have been able to establish several wells in the district and its outskirts, but the citizens are still suffering from water scarcity. They demand repairing the damaged wells, but the preventive measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic hindered the process", he added.

For his part, Rutba district's administrator, Imad Al-Dulaimi, stated to Shafaq News agency, "the Ministry of Water Resources is unable to dig new wells or repair the destroyed ones. The ministry claims that the district's wells are sufficient and cover its need, while in reality, these wells cannot be sufficient since the water processing project linking Ramadi and Rutba is out of work".

" Rehabilitating the project to deliver water from Ramadi to Rutba is in full swing as part of the projects of the Fund for the Reconstruction of the Affected Areas, but we need emergency solutions until the project is completed", Al-Dulaimi said.

"The Ministry of Water Resources is constantly digging or maintaining wells. It is working to build dams on small valleys to increase underground water", said Iyad Al-Rawi, director of water resources in western Al-Anbar. He also added, "We have not been informed of such a matter by anyone, neither administrative from the governorate nor local in the sub-district. If there are such cases, the Al-Anbar Water Resources Directorate or the Ministry of Water Resources can be contacted to solve the problem".