Demonstrations escalate in Diwaniya and Najaf due to power outages, at a time of record heat with temperatures around 50 degrees. Police respond with tear gas and live ammunition. They fear a mass protest like the one in 2019. In Nasiriya, China will build a civilian airport for 2.5 million passengers per year, strengthening its partnership with Baghdad.
Baghdad () – A scorching summer is forecast for Iraq, and not just because of the weather: the latest power cuts in a season of intense heat, with temperatures approaching – and regularly exceeding – 50 degrees, are fuelling the discontent of a population critical of the government. The latest demonstrations took place over the weekend, but more are expected in the coming days. The epicentre of the protests were the cities of Diwaniya and Najaf, in the centre and south, where activists and young people burned tyres and the police, in response, fired tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the crowd.
According to the independent television station Al-SumariaHundreds of Diwaniya residents took part in demonstrations on the evening of 14 July to protest against the “lack of equity” and “favoritism” in the distribution of electricity in the area. “The demonstration began in the Shamiya neighbourhood by blocking the Diwaniyah-Najaf road, to demonstrate against the deterioration of services and the interruption of electricity supply,” said a security source. Similar scenes were repeated the following day in the Safiyya neighbourhood, where tyres were burned.
Ammar al-Khazaaly, an activist who took part in the Diwaniyah protests, told Middle East Eye (MME) said that people also took to the streets to denounce the “repression” by the security forces, who fired tear gas and live bullets that caused “minor injuries”. For the moment, the scale of the discontent is less than in October 2019, when Iraq was shaken by weeks of blockades and a harsh crackdown by the authorities in Baghdad, but popular anger is still palpable. “These are local and regional demonstrations”, but the crowd that has taken to the streets is made up of both activists and all kinds of people who have joined at the last minute. “The numbers are lower than those of previous protests, but they are still high” and an escalation cannot be ruled out.
Popular discontent also rocked Najaf, particularly in the Haidariya and Ghamas districts between Diwaniya and Najaf, where protesters were injured by bullets fired by police at people’s height. Video footage from protests in recent days showed demonstrators chanting slogans such as “No one can defeat Husseiniyah’s revolution!”, referring to the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, whose martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala in 680 is a key spiritual event for Shiites and is often cited by protesters as a symbol of struggle.
Confirming the critical situation, the newspaper Al-Sabah The Diwaniyah governorate office was quoted as saying that efforts are being made to secure a “reliable” electricity supply to cover the 850 megawatts required. There are currently repeated power outages and only two hours of electricity supply. Protests of this kind have become a norm in the country during the summer months, especially since the war against the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) ended and popular gatherings have become less dangerous.
Although Iraq is a resource-rich country, a combination of corruption and outdated infrastructure has left many people without access to electricity, which is vital in one of the hottest places on Earth during the summer season. Environmental groups warn that due to climate change, much of the country could become uninhabitable in the coming years and that demand for infrastructure investment to cope with rising temperatures will inevitably continue to grow. At the same time, the prospect of mass protests, as happened in October 2019, which were brutally suppressed by the police and then “frozen” by the Covid-19 pandemic, will also increase.
Meanwhile, to strengthen infrastructure and connections, Baghdad is finalising a contract with a Chinese company for the construction of a new airport in Nasiriyah, in the south of the country, which once again confirms Beijing’s growing interest in the Middle East. The Iraqi Ministry of Transport confirmed that the contract for the construction of the structure had been signed with China State Construction Engineering and another for the construction of the airport with the Turkish company Kiklop Design Hertz Insaat.
According to the project, the facility will be ready by 2025, should be able to handle 2.5 million passengers per year and will have a 25-kilometer road to connect it to different points in the province. There is currently a military airport, but it is not operational for passenger flights. Beijing is the main buyer of Iraqi crude oil and Chinese companies currently handle two-thirds of the country’s oil production. In 2019, Iraq and China signed an “oil for infrastructure” agreement, according to which construction projects in the country are financed by the sale of 100,000 barrels of oil per day to the People’s Republic.
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