Attackson water systems are uncommon in wartime, but they have appeared in the war in the Middle East with strikes on desalination plants — critical infrastructure for millions of people in the arid region.
Bahrain’s interior ministry said Sunday that an Iranian drone attack damaged a water desalination plant, accusing Tehran of “randomly” targeting civilian infrastructure.
Bahrain’s national communication office later said the Iranian attack on a water desalination facility has had no impact on water supplies or network capacity.
The strike came a day after Iran accused the United States of setting a precedent by attacking a desalination plant on Qeshm Island which supplies 30 villages.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard force said the United States attacked Qeshm from a base in Bahrain.
Such attacks have been limited so far, but “the first side that dares to attack water triggers a war far more enormous than the one we have today”, water economist Esther Crauser-Delbourg told AFP.
TheMiddle Eastis among the driest regions in the world, with water availability about 10 times lower than the global average, according to the World Bank.
That makes desalination plants essential to the economy and drinking water supplies in the region.
About 42 percent of the world’s desalination capacity is located in the Middle East, according to a study published in the journal Nature.
Desalinated water provides 42 percent of drinking water in the United Arab Emirates, 70 percent in Saudi Arabia, 86 percent in Oman and 90 percent in Kuwait, according to a 2022 report from the French Institute of International Relations think tank.
Source: Insider Paper
