Clean Water
Grades
3–5, 6–8, 9–12
Citizens in southern Iraq gather to receive water from a water truck brought to their village by coalition forces on April 11. (Photo Staff Sergeant Quinton T. Burris/ 1st Combat Camera)
People need clean water to survive. In fact, humans can go much longer without food than they can without water. In Iraq, residents of cities such as Baghdad and Basra lost their water supply during the warand suffered the consequences.
Gordon Weiss, a spokesman for the UN International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), explained to Scholastic News Online why dirty water is such a problem.
"The health of a child is at the end of a very long pipe, and at the end of that pipe you get water coming out," said Weiss. "The water is either good or bad. What we're getting at the moment is a lot of bad water and a rise in the number of children who are sick."
UNICEF has been the international group to take charge of restoring clean water to Iraq. Weiss went on the describe the obstacles relief workers face:
"If you trace [the water pipe] back, the first problem will be a broken water pump. Maybe it's been looted; perhaps it's been damaged during the war; perhaps they have no electricity. If you trace the pipe back further, you get to the pumping station. It may no longer have the chemicals to cleanse the waterbecause the chemicals have been stolen or damaged.
An Iraqi girl carries away a box of bottled water and humanitarian meals distributed by citizens of Kuwait and U.S. Army soldiers. (Photo U.S. Navy Photographer's Mate 1st Class Arlo K. Abrahamson)
Engineers have worked quickly to repair the damageand to prevent more Iraqis from becoming ill with diarrhea and life-threatening diseases. Water treatment plants north of Baghdad, hit during an air raid, are fixed and once again making water safe to drink.
