The country’s average temperature has risen by 0.48C a decade from 2000. Last August, photographer Susan Schulman visited Baghdad and Amarah, to capture the impact of extreme weather on everyday lives

 15 Apr 2025  Susan Schulman

A man swelters in Baghdad’s scorching August heat. Summer temperatures in Iraq can reach 50C, far higher than two decades ago, when they would rarely exceed 40C

A vendor selling fresh fish seeks respite from 49C heat in Amarah, a city on the Tigris River near the Iranian border

Cooking fish over an open flame is hot work in Amarah’s summer heat
In June 2024, the Iraqi government reduced public sector working hours to alleviate the burden of extreme heat on employees such as this street cleaner in Amarah
An exhausted dog lies in a rare puddle to cool off in Amarah
A power cut plunges an Amarah juice bar into darkness. With summers in Iraq getting hotter, blackouts are increasing, as demand for electricity vastly exceeds supply
Tangles of wires are ubiquitous throughout Iraq’s cities. They are becoming even more dangerous in extreme temperatures as the insulation on the cables can melt and cause fire

Abbas Hassan, 65, makes a living operating a private generator in Amarah: ‘A lot of homes ask me for electricity. More every year.’ Drought has forced 140,000 Iraqis to abandon their land for cities, adding to the burden on an energy grid already overloaded with demand for air conditioning
At Amarah’s Al-Sadr hospital, relatives of patients crowd into a dark, hot corridor during a blackout. The hospital has two huge generators but they are not enough to power the whole building, so the most critical zones are prioritised
On the hospital wards, which often have no windows, temperatures can reach a stifling 40C when the electricity cuts out

Al-Sadr hospital is often hot and crowded, creating more challenging conditions for staff to work in
A poster in the hospital warns against violence, levels of which increase in extreme heat. ‘It’s not just physical attacks,’ says Dr Ahmed Saleh, 31. ‘There are threats of kidnapping, of revenge against our families. Some doctors have been forced to pay “blood money” to families of deceased patients’
Dr Bassim, president of the Baghdad Medical Syndicate and manager of the Al-Sadr hospital, says they have had to increase security. ‘We now have 60 armed security personnel on duty 24 hours a day,’ he says. ‘Violence has become our daily reality’
Staff struggle with overcrowding and a lack of resources in extreme temperatures. ‘Heat makes them more tense than usual,’ says Dr Muhammad Joseph, an internal medicine specialist at Baghdad’s St Raphael hospital

A small child, weak and feverish from the heat, cries as her mother and a doctor try to comfort her in the emergency room at Al-Sadr
The Number 2 Health Centre in Baghdad’s Sadr City district relies on an old, rusty generator during the frequent power cuts. It doesn’t always work

Work continues in the dark as the electricity fails again at the Number 2 Health Centre in Sadr City

As a nurse at the Number 2 Health Centre overseeing 12,600 pupils at 26 schools for 10 years, Muhammed Jassim, 43, has seen the situation deteriorate. As more climate-displaced families arrive in the city, overcrowded schools are having to teach in split shifts, with sweltering classes of up to 60 children

Jassim shows his register of pupils fainting from the heat in class. ‘Each month, there are about 100 cases,’ he says. ‘These students often end up in hospital, where they add to the numbers for the overloaded medical staff’

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/gallery/2025/apr/15/faintings-blackouts-violence-iraqs-scorching-emergency-extreme-weather