Iraq: Farmers cultivate chemical weapons site

azzaman: A dozen landless and poverty-stricken farmers have pitched their tents in Muthana, the chemical weapons site which once produced thousands of tons of chemical precursors, nerve agents and mustard gas.

Muthana was the largest chemical weapons production and storage site in Iraq and it took U.N. weapons inspectors three years to dispose of its chemical warfare munitions.

Thousands of tons chemical agents including mustard gas, Sarin, Tabun and VX were burned on the 5 km by 5 km facility. Thousands of barrels still lie there, some full and some empty.

But the risks have not deterred Widha al-Shamari to move to the site and cultivate part of its land with tomatoes, cucumber, onions and other vegetables.

"It is an empty land. It now belongs to nobody and it is arable and fertile and very good for agriculture," said Shamari, one of the farmers on the site.

Asked whether he feared that the site was still contaminated and that some of the barrels still had chemical agents in them, Shamari said: "We have pushed all the barrels aside and used some to fence off our own areas. No one has told us anything about the dangers. No one has objected to our presence here," he said. Read more