In al-Mashtal area, east of Baghdad, women are obliged to walk long distances and wait several hours at water distribution plants every day in order to fill plastic gallons with drinking water. With an ongoing shortage of water in Baghdad, these women are desperate for clean water and this is their only option.

Fifty-five year old Sa’diyah Manati is one of the women waiting in front of al-Mashtal water station. However, unlike many others, she is turning the bad circumstances to good and earning a few extra pennies from the water shortage. As well as taking water for herself, Manati fills containers that she then sells on to other families.

“The shortage of water has secured me a job which provides for my children following the death of their father in a suicide bombing,” she said.

Crowds of people, mostly women and children, gathering near water taps spread around the gate of the water plants have become a common scene. Most of these people are from low income groups living in shanty neighborhoods scattered across Baghdad, with water crises increasing the burdens and expenses of their daily lives.

According to official reports by the UN agency in Iraq (UNAMI) and Iraqi government departments including Baghdad’s Water Directorate, there has been a sharp decrease in the production capacity of water plants. Figures indicate that the daily drinking water needs of Baghdad’s population is at least 3.25 million cubic meters, while the amount supplied through water networks does not exceed two million cubic meters.

“The huge shortage in qualified human resources, the lack of necessary equipment to produce drinking water, the unavailability of necessary material for water treatment and purification, and the old and worn-out infrastructure of water facilities,” are to blame says, Hazem Ibrahim, a Baghdad Municipality water department engineer.

Reports say that water shortages are contributing to the spread of diseases across many regions of the country, especially in more remote areas. There are indications that deadly diseases such as cholera and malaria have spread as a result of the use of untreated river water for daily needs.

According to Dr. Bassem Sharif, a member of parliament’s Health Committee, “people are suffering serious health problems as a result of poor public services and the failure of some government institutions, such as the ministries of health and municipalities, to provide these basic services.” During a recent visit to the province of Babylon Sharif says he discovered many diseases that emerged “as a result of the use of unsafe water from rivers and lakes.”

Hospitals in Baghdad deal with up to 250 cases each week of people suffering water-transmitted diseases said Sharif. Most of these people are poor and cannot buy bottled water or boil the water because of high fuel prices.

Describing the suffering of Baghdad’s population as a result of water shortages, Umm Ibrahim, her face covered with wrinkles pointing to the struggles of her fifty years of life, says that people feel like they are living “in a desert not a country rich in rivers.”

Umm Ibrahim works in a government office, earning 150,000 dinars (US $125) each month. The amount barely cover the needs of the four members of her family and so she is obliged to wake at dawn daily and wait several hours at the water plant before she goes to work.

Some well-off families have been able to compensate for the water shortage by buying large quantities of treated water from water plants. Abbas al-Shamkhi, sales manager at the Nab’ al-Safi (Pure Spring) company for mineral water says that demand has grown strongly following a number of cases of cholera and medical warnings against the use of contaminated water sources.

Al-Shamkhi said that as a result of increased demand his company has pushed up production while selling the water at an affordable price. A 10 litre gallon is sold for 2000 dinars (US $1.5) and the price of a box containing 24 small bottles of mineral water is approximately 5,000 dinars (US $4).

However, as cases of cholera have become evident, health experts are warning people that even some private plants do not possess the necessary technical equipment to properly purify water. In the end it seems that the rich, as well as the poor, will share in thirst and frustration.