Working in the Mesopotamian marshes (UPDATE)

Alumni from the IMCK postgraduate course Media bo Khalk (Media for People) visited the Mesopotamian marshes in the southern Iraqi province Basra in March 2012. The old students were on assignments for international and local media. During the late eighties and nineties draining of the marshes took place under the Saddam regime. Before 2003 the marshes shrunk to 10% of their original (20.000 km2) size. Nowadays they have partially recovered, but drought along with upstream dam construction and operation in Turkey, Syria and Iran have hindered the process. The alumni went to the city of Chibaish, the Central and Hammar Marsh to see how people were living there and the problems the area faces.

After finishing their education about 70% of all students found work in print and broadcast journalism in Iraq and outside. Munaf Al Saidy (27) is a talented print journalist and photographer for the German news agency Deutsche Welle.


See the photo-story Munaf Ghanim has made for DW about life in the marshes. Or read his article in Arabic about fishermen, buffalo breeders and salinity in the water of the marshes on the same website.

Also on the trip was Mohammed Abdullah (25) who is working as a photographer for the Sulaymaniyah based photo-agency Metrography. For the local newspaper Al-Iraq Ghadan the young journalist wrote an article about the marshes (see here). To see some work made by Mr. Abdullah visit his weblog.


The third old-Media bo Khalk student who made a story is Ahmed Mohammed. This 24-years old journalist from Baghdad wrote an article for the Iraqi newspaper Alsabah Al-Jaded. You can find it here.


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