May 09, 2023 11:30 AM
Karbala, IRAQ – Haydar Mohamed once grew wheat and barley, but Iraq’s relentless drought has forced him off the land and into the city where he now works in construction and drives a taxi.
“The transition is difficult,” said Mohamed, 42, who abandoned village life several years ago for a shantytown in the central city of Karbala.
He is part of a growing wave of climate migrants in Iraq, a country that is on the frontlines of the global warming crisis.
Years of dire water scarcity left him no choice but to move, said the father of five.
“If you don’t work,” he said, “you don’t eat.”