Sanitation workers in Iraq's Basra decry salary delays

By Idris Okuducu

BASRA, Iraq

Sanitation workers in Iraq’s southern city of Basra on Monday took the street to protest the local authorities’ failure to pay their salaries for the last two months, according to local security officials.

Mohamed Khalaf, a captain in the army’s Basra Joint Operations Command, said street cleaners from Basra’s Zubair district had converged on the city’s municipality building to demand their overdue pay.

“Some demonstrators dumped garbage outside the building; others threw stones,” Khalaf said.

“We have taken care to warn the protesters to stage their demonstration in a peaceful and lawful manner,” he added.

War-weary Iraq continues to suffer from a severe financial crisis caused by declining world oil prices and high rates of government spending, especially in the military field.

Baghdad justifies its high military expenditures by pointing to its recently-ended war against the Daesh terrorist group, which was defeated last year after overrunning much of the country in mid-2014.

Last July, teachers from state-run schools in Basra staged demonstrations to protest similar salary delays.