Draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes

Draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes

A 1994 map of the Mesopotamian Marshes with the pink zones showing drained areas
Date	1950s–2003
Location	Mesopotamian Marshes, Iraq
Motive	Land reclamation and reprisal for the Shi'ite insurrection in 1991
Organized by	Ba'athist Iraq
Outcome	90% of the marshlands disappeared by 2000 Desertification of over 7,500 square miles 200,000 Marsh Arabs displaced

The Mesopotamian Marshes were drained in Iraq and to a smaller degree in Iran between the 1950s and 1990s to clear large areas of the marshes in the Tigris-Euphrates river system. The marshes formerly covered an area of around 20,000 km² (7,700 sq mi). The main sub-marshes, the Hawizeh, Central, and Hammar marshes, were drained at different times for different reasons.

In the 1990s, the marshes were drained for political motives, namely to force the Marsh Arabs out of the area and to punish them for their role in the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein's government.^[1] However, the government's stated reasoning was to reclaim land for agriculture and exterminate breeding grounds for mosquitoes.^[2] The displacement of more than 200,000 of the Ahwaris, and the associated state-sponsored campaign of violence against them, has led the United States and others to describe the draining of the marshes as ecocide or ethnic cleansing.^[3][4][5]

The draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes has been described by the United Nations as a "tragic human and environmental catastrophe" on par with the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest^[6] and by other observers as one of the worst environmental disasters of the 20th century.^[7]