Click here to view and hear the 9-minute interview. It takes a bit to connect. “Everything is improving…International companies come into Iraq and build water treatment dams and new projects. It’s getting better state by state,” says Sarmad Bearmany, a translator at a water treatment plant in Hilla. “Still, there is a deficiency.” He reports that even though 80% of the water is good for drinking, the pipes that carry it are “old and dirty and need replacing. It’s so difficult, we need billions of dollars to change the pipes.” He interrupted to tell me that in 2009,
the area south of where he lives
rest skin don’t.
(in the al-Hashimyah District), 5 people died and 24 people were sickened by drinking sewage-contaminated water. He later wrote that it took 5 months to clean the pipes and that it was a cholera epidemic (not malaria). Humanitarian organizations and the central Iraqi government are paying for the rebuilding. I’ll be interviewing Sarmad again.
Please post your questions and comments for him below!