Disease alert after sewage system collapses

Report, IRIN

Residents of Iraq's capital, Baghdad, are at risk of contracting a range of waterborne diseases as the city's sewage system has collapsed after four days of heavy rain, the country's health ministry said on Monday. For nearly a week now, 45-year-old teacher Jassim Abdullah has been forced to buy bottled water for his family's daily use at an expense that his meagre income barely covers. "We can't use tap water for drinking or cooking. It's all sewage. That is why I have put aside 100,000 Iraqi dinars [about US $75] to buy water for cooking and washing," said Abdullah, a father of five girls, from Baghdad's poor neighbourhood of Hurriyah

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