These pictures were taken in 1977 and 1979 when the Iraqi Wetlands still covered an area of some 6,000 square kilometers (about the size of the state of Connecticut) and were inhabited by about half a million Ma'dan Arabs. The wetlands are largely made by the Euphrates River, which effectively loses its course south of Shatra within a vast region of marshes (ahwar), canals, and human-made islands (shabayish). Archaeological evidence suggests that the Ma'dan may have lived in this region since Sumerian times (4th millennium BCE); indeed, their reed huts are represented in several Sumerian relief sculptures. The Ma'dan relied for their livelihood on the water buffalo, whose milk and cream they consumed and traded with the surrounding settled communities for dates and grains. They also hunted, fished, and farmed small patches of land. These wetlands not only provided an ideal and essential environment for the water buffalo but they also constituted the main links of trade and communication between the Ma'dan and adjacent regions.

Soon after the Shi'ite rebellion in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam embarked on a criminal policy whose aim was to disperse the Ma'dan by destroying their homeland and habitat. Dams were built on the Euphrates and a huge canal just east of the wetlands was dug, thereby draining canals and marshes and desiccating the landscape. According to recent reports only 7% of the original wetlands remains, and little more than 20,000 Ma'dan still inhabit the region. Some have fled to Iran, many were killed, while many more live under extreme poverty on the outskirts of Iraqi cities and towns.

See: BBC News Iraq Marshes vanishing

Though little-known in the U.S., the draining of the Iraqi wetlands has been compared with the deforestation of the Amazon River and the draining of the Aral Sea in Russia. In human terms, the destruction of the Ma'dan has been described by Joseph Dellapenna (Villanova University Law School) as tantamount to genocide.

See: "Marsh Arabs"