Every day contaminated water brings death to 5,000 children in the poorest countries of the world. In Iraq the situation is
particularly critical after three wars. One Iraqi child in eight dies before his or her fifth birthday. This is due to diarrhoea, caused by unsafe drinking water.
Although the area around Basra has a plentiful water supply, this region in Southern Iraq is most seriously affected by the scarcity of drinking water. For years now untreated sewerage has been allowed to enter the rivers and pollute the only source of drinking water for a large section of the population.
Damage caused by the war and post-war looting have further aggravated the situation. In Basra alone 100,000 children are at risk.
A water treatment plant that UNICEF constructed with the support of the “Ann Kathrin Linsenhoff UNICEF Foundation” and adjacent
to Basra General Hospital has recently been commissioned. The plant filters and desalinates water using reverse osmosis.
It supplies the hospital, which has about 400 in-patients – at least 10 % of them children – with approximately 60,000 litres
of fresh water a day. To prevent the water from being re-contaminated in outdated pipes, it was initially fed into two tanks,
each with a capacity of 30 cubic metres, and then carried to the wards in jugs and canisters. This allowed the work of repairing the pipes to begin.
