The marsh people
They are called many ways, some neutral, like Ahwari or Marsh Arabs, others derogatory, as Ma’dan and Shrogs… But who are they really?
The Ahwari have inhabited the marshlands of southern Iraq, in the Basra region, for centuries, and with the marshes they have a loving and symbiotic relationship. They live with and because of water, still using techniques derived from Sumerian traditions to live and fish in these seemingly inhospitable territories, from building dwellings out of bundles of dried rushes to constructing mashḥūf, thin canoes used to move among the marshes.
The Ahwari are a fierce people, rooted in their territory, proud of their traditions, yet constantly challenged, not only by environmental challenges, but especially by the political regimes that over the years have exerted their control over that territory, failing to understand its nature, complexity, and preciousness.
The existence of the Ahwari people has been jeopardized both by foreign governments, during colonization, and by the Iraqi government, which, instead of valuing this minority and its territory, “has taken and taken and taken, barely giving anything back, if at all.”(1)
The historical discrimination against the Ahwari
The exploitation, impoverishment, and discrimination of the Ahwari began with the British military campaign against the Ottoman Empire during WWI, following which, in 1921, the Kingdom of Iraq emerged, gaining its independence only in 1932. The fledgling state entity, dominated by urban elites, already precluded adequate representation for the Ahwari, marginalizing them politically and consequently economically. The needs of the Marsh Arabs, in fact, were not taken into account in the national economic development plans, which were based on the exploitation of oil resources (accounting for 90 percent of government revenue and 32 percent of GDP (2)) without looking at the environmental damage it was causing in the marshy territory inhabited by the Ahwari, close to one of the most polluted regions of Iraq. The attack on the Ahwari’s most important resource, water, initiated a huge flow of migration from the swamps to the city, the only hope for many members of the Ahwari minority to continue supporting their families, often even having to work in the very industries that were contributing to the destruction of their land.
Alongside the economic side is the political one. Iraq, in fact, “has thus become an enemy to the marsh Arabs”(3), excluding them of governmental decisions about marsh land and denying them the guarantee of basic human rights, such as access to clean water, as well as precluding them from resources, jobs and public services.
The precarious condition of the Ahwari and their need to move to urban areas has resulted in the construction of slums on the outskirts of cities, which have fueled the misconception of the Ahwari within the Iraqi population as a backward, different, dangerous minority. In the cities, the Ahwari are still relegated to the humblest jobs, the only ones they have access to, and are treated with mistrust and contempt by the majority of the population, resulting in episodes of great violence.
Discrimination against the Ahwari is not limited within the Iraqi borders; on the contrary, it extends way beyond, particularly into Iran. The marshes inhabited by the Ahwari are, in fact, located halfway between the territories of the two states, whose borders are therefore often crossed by Marsh Arabs, particularly by herders and water buffalo breeders . Because of these movements, the Ahwari have often been the victims of attacks, violence and even killings by the Iranian authorities, who are hostile to the Marsh Arabs despite the fact that they constitute a Shiite minority. This is precisely what happened, or example, in November 2022, when Iranian border authorities killed two Ahwari men and injured a third, then refused, with the connivance and acquiescence of the Iraqi government, to return the victims’ bodies to their families (4).
The issue of the Ahwari, as well as many other minorities in Iraq, has not gone unnoticed by the United Nations, which on multiple occasions has approached the Iraqi government for guarantees of adequate protection of this part of population, as well as assurance of basic rights and primary goods in all areas of Iraq, including the marshes inhabited by the Ahwari. It is precisely on this issue that in 2018 the Iraqi Minister of Justice, Hussein Al-Zuhairi, spoke before the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (a section of the United Nation Human Rights Council), stating that “The Marsh Arabs […] had a very specific way of life, which was taken into account in the provision of public services like health, education or water and sanitation” (5). Therefore, it would seem that the Iraqi government is moving toward a new sensitivity to the Ahwari minority, even though facts show that no governmental decisions, either on environmental, health, or labor policy, actually take their needs into account (6).
The discrimination by Hussein
In addition to the discrimination the Ahwari had endured since the early twentieth century, they were also subjected to persecution by Saddam Hussein in the 1990s. Accused of treason and disloyalty to Hussein’s regime during the war against Iran (1980-88), mainly because of the Shiite religion shared by Iranians and Ahwari, the Marsh Arabs were victims of crimes against humanity by their own government: to punish this minority, Hussein bombed the marshes, attempted their reclamation, and forced the Ahwari population to migrate en masse to northern Iraq and urban areas, where the hunt for those who were considered rebels would be easier for the regime (7).
During this period, more than 100,000 people were forced to leave the marshes, becoming refugees in their homeland. Only after the fall of Saddam in 2003 the Ahwari were able to re-establish partial normalcy, returning to their territories and rebuilding their communities. The legacy of persecution and forced migration however, is very strong, as witnessed by the accounts of Iraqis who were victims, directly or indirectly, of Saddam Hussein’s crimes against the Iraqi people, and in particular the Ahwari. One of them is a young man named Ryan Manya, born in a northern Iraqi town to which his Ahwari parents were forced to move in the 1990s, who admits to Al Jazeera: “The 2003 invasion destroyed Iraq, but it also protected my family. […] If there was no invasion and Saddam was still here, there would have been another genocide and I would be dead by now, or more likely not born”.
The Ahwari’s resistance
The Ahwari are a people who have been abused and marginalized for years, including and especially by their own government, but that does not mean they have stopped fighting for the preservation of their traditions, culture and territory. The Ahwari marshes, considered by UNESCO an environmental and cultural World Heritage Site, are increasingly under attack due to the rising levels of pollution, but they are also tirelessly defended by many activists, who put their lives on the line by contrasting the government to support their cause and defend their people. To the cry of “We want our rights” and “Ahwar is dying,” the entire Ahwari community is mobilizing through multiple networks, inside and outside Iraq, foremost among them The Ahwari Network for Human Rights, trying to draw the eyes of the world to their matshes, to their world. Once again, however, their voice is feeble, unheard, drowned out by the voices echoing in the glossy halls where delegations politely exchange assurances, enter into agreements destined to remain unimplemented, and play with the fate of a population that is doing everything just to survive.
Bibliography
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C. Aljamil, “Indigenous Screenings: Piecing the Ahwari Narrative,” The Ahwari Network for Human Rights, 2023, url: https://ahwari.net/indigenous-screenings-piecing-ahwari
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C. Nakhle, “How Iraq Can Move Beyond the Oil Sector,” ISPI, 2021, url: https://www.ispionline.it/en/publication/how-iraq-can-move-beyond-oil-sector-32014?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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B. Manya, “The Ahwari migration is still happening,” Ahwari Network for Human Rights, 2023, url: https://ahwari.net/ahwari-migration-still
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The Ahwari Nework for Human Rights, 2022, url: https://ahwari.net/2-ahwari-men-murdered
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Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination reviews the situation in Iraq**,** 2018, url: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2018/11/committee-elimination-racial-discrimination-reviews-situation-iraq?sub-site=HRC)
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A. Al Ahwari, “We are like the fish. If we leave the water, we will die,” International Organization for Migration, 2025, url: https://iraq.iom.int/stories/we-are-fish-if-we-leave-water-we-will-die
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R. Manya, “20 years on: The Iraqis born the year the war began,” Al Jazeera, 2023, url: https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2023/3/30/20-years-on-the-iraqis-born-the-year-the-war-began