CAMPAIGN: ILISU DAMN

these things can effect the humans, animals and plants that depend on the river. Diyarbakir - population over 1 million - Batman and Siirt eject both solid waste and waste water directly into the Tigris without treatment. Since the Ilisu Dam reservoir will vast decrease the ability of the Tigris to purify itself, this will jeopardise water quality downstream and ultimately create a major health hazzard for the larger dowstream towns - towns where the infrastructure is already breaking under the influx of Kurds forced from their rural homes.

There are also considerable health risks for those who live close to the dam. The Berne Declaration states that the Ilisu reservoir will "infest the area with Malaria and Leishmaniasis" which will mean higher incidents of anemia, fever, dysentery and pneumonia, some of which may prove fatal.

An Environmental Impact Assessment was commissioned in 1997 and completed by Spring 1998. It has not been released to the public. Requasts for access to this material by both Swiss and UK NGOs has been consistently denied. According to Balfour Beatty the EIA "confirms that there are no problems as regards the potential effects of the project on local flora and fauna, climate, landscape, ground water, earthquake risk, flooding risk, sedimentation or erosion." If this is so, why is there so much reluctance to publish the original EIA?

So, what are you going to do about it?

For those who would still like the opportunity to help, there is a letter to Stephen Byers, Secretary of State for Trade at the Ilisu Damn Campaign site. Click here to see it. Sorry it is so long. Unfortunately, Mr Byers has been a bit canny about handing out his email address, so if you want to get involved you need to copy this letter from the site, print it out, sign it and send it by snail mail to Stephen Byers.

Links to others opposing the Ilisu Damn:

• Ilisu Damn Campaign
• Kurdish Human Rights Project
• Friends of the Earth

All the photos of Hasankeyf on this page were provided by the Kurdish Human Rights Project (UK)

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