Zubair

Clothes are hung to dry on a road tanker waiting to be loaded. Truck drivers transport the oil byproducts from the Zubair field to factories in the south and east of the country, where they are used mostly to make asphalt. Drivers are paid about 20,000 Iraqi dinars (£13) for each tonne transported and one truck can hold up to 30 tonnes

Nahr Bin Umar

The homes of Noufel Abdallah Khaldi, 35, and his relatives are next to the oilfield. He grew up here, and lost his cousin and two neighbours to cancer. He is worried that his eight children often suffer with respiratory problems, but they have nowhere else they can go, he says

Zubair

A flag depicting Husseyn, the martyred grandson of Muhammad revered by Shia Muslims, beside a bag filled with medicine on the wall at Waheed Wade Makhtof’s house. Makhtof, 51, was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2016, and again in 2022 with breast cancer. His doctor told him it was caused by the pollution around where he lives. The town of Zubair is next to one of southern Iraq’s main oilfields

Nahr Bin Umar

A group of fishermen from Qarmat Ali check their nets early in the morning on the Shatt al-Arab River. They fish in this area every day and sell the fish for 5,000 dinars a kilo (£3). They say pollution and increased salinity in the river limit what they can catch and they often find dead fish floating on the water

Nahr Bin Umar

Fish are sold next to the Shatt al-Arab. The fish, as the sellers explain, are not all from this river but have to be bought in from elsewhere. Since 2017, they say, there are not enough fish in the heavily polluted Shatt al-Arab

Al Khora

The carcass of a water buffalo on the ground where Basra’s northern marshes once used to provide a living for the local community of farmers and fishers. Water has become increasingly scarce over the past 10 years, and local people say the marshes dried out completely this year after an Italian company built a water station to provide water for the oilfields

Nahr Bin Umar

A relative of Noufel Abdallah Khaldi leads their flock back home. Khaldi says the animals suffer badly from the pollution and believes some have died because of it

Basra

A refinery worker has his lung capacity tested by Dr Saadi Hadi at the local centre for occupational health and safety. Hadi says that oil and gas workers often have respiratory problems as they do not use masks or other protective equipment. In 2022, the centre tested 18,077 workers but the results were not made public

Zubair

Abdelkazim Taher al-Aissawi, 66, looks at a scan of the metastatic carcinoma in his cervical lymph nodes. He was diagnosed in 2019 and has received chemotherapy. He now has regular checks every two months. When he was given the diagnosis, the doctor told him to just accept it, as an inevitable consequence of having served as a soldier in the Gulf war and from living so close to the oilfields

Basra

Shia Abbas, 60, from Nassiriya, waits by the bed of her nephew, Ali Saad Hashem, 11, who is being treated for leukaemia at Basra children’s hospital. The paediatric oncology ward has 45 beds, and sick children can spend months here.

Basra

Teddy bears at the private clinic of Dr Hussam Mahmoud Salah, a paediatric oncologist who also works at Basra children’s hospital. Salah says he has seen a steady rise in cancer cases among children over the past 20 years, with the number of new cases treated at the hospital almost doubling between 2019 and 2020 (from 200 to 300-400). Salah is cautious about citing possible reasons behind the increase but believes a thorough epidemiological study is urgently needed

Zubair

Jazmiya Khaled, 48, lost her husband to liver cancer in July 2022, six months after it was diagnosed. He used to work as a vegetable seller. The doctor said the cause of his cancer was pollution from gas flaring, as the family lives near one of southern Iraq’s biggest oilfields

Zubair

Mohammed Youssef Abd, 24, holds a photo of himself with his friend Nasser. When Abd was eight, he was diagnosed with leukaemia. He had several rounds of chemotherapy between 2008 and 2012 and for three years he was at Basra children’s hospital, where he could only see his family through glass, to protect him from infections. He is now in remission, but Nasser, whom he met at the hospital, died

Al Khora

Mahdi Mutir, 57, is a father of five and used to fish in Basra’s northern marshes. From his village he can see the smoke from the Zubair oilfield. He says that after 2021, as a result of a new water station built by an oil company, the marshes dried up. In Iraq, oil companies inject water into the wells to extract oil. Water is partly extracted from canals and rivers

Zubair

Abbas al-Sharif, 19, was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2012. He had chemotherapy for five years and now needs regular check-ups. He had to drop out of school when he got sick and now hopes to complete his studies. His father, Alaa Sharif Radhi, was shocked to be told by the doctor that his son’s leukaemia was probably caused by pollution. They live in Shaibah, next to a refinery and oilfields. He does not let his son go outside now when there is too much smoke and does his best to take him for trips to Karbala, or outside Basra, to breathe cleaner air

Zubair

Falah Hassan Sajet, 30, looks at a picture of his father, Hassan Sajet, who died of liver cancer. He says they never thought that flaring gas and living next to oilfields could be so dangerous. His wife also suffers from asthma. After his father’s death, Falah became increasingly worried for his eight children but also angry to be living next to oilwells when he lacks fuel to heat his home

Zubair

Children playing near Shaibah. The area is surrounded by oilfields, with gas from wells flared constantly

Abu al-Musammar

A child plays with a water buffalo in the area north of Basra. In recent years, the marshes have almost completely dried up, depriving the community of fish and grazing for their livestock

Al Khora

Mahdi Mutir, 57, in his house. He and his wife, Intisar, used to fish to provide for their family of six. One year ago, the marshes dried up as a result, they believe, of a new water station built by an oil company. They lost their income and now Mutir works when he can in construction, in oilfields or doing other work for the oil companies

Zubair

Muthana Shaker, 35, and Mohamed Salah Habib, 26, from Anbar, smoke while they wait for their trucks to be loaded with oil from the Zubair fields. They can be away from home for months at a time

Zubair

Murtada Abdallah and his brother at their shop, where they sell snacks as well as plastic bottles of benzene. The bottles are a common sight in Zubair, where crude oil is also smuggled and refined illegally

Zubair

Nouri Sadeq Hasan Salman, 33, in his house in Shaibah with his mother and nephew. He is getting dialysis while waiting for a kidney transplant, after he was diagnosed with bilateral chronic parenchymal renal disease. For three years, he worked as a day labourer at Hammar in the Zubair oilfield for a subcontractor of the Italian oil giant ENI. When the doctor told him his disease was probably due to pollutants he was exposed to at work and where he lives, he blamed himself. He has a brother and a cousin still working there

Basra

The Shatt al-Arab river in Basra, at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris. It is one of Iraq’s most important rivers and the main source of water for Basra. Its water is extracted for various purposes, including drinking. But salinity and pollution levels have soared as water levels have fallen. At least 118,000 people were hospitalised with symptoms doctors identified as related to water quality in summer 2018

Zubair

Adnan Betran, from Basra, drives for 30 minutes every day to Shaibah to train his homing pigeons. It is a profitable hobby when he can sell some of them. All around, Zubair’s oilfields flare gas day and night