[2] The displacement of more than 200,000 of the Ahwaris, and the associated state-sponsored campaign of violence against them, has led the United States and others to describe the draining of the marshes as ecocide, ethnic cleansing,[3][4] or genocide.

The former British Mandate administrators (Iraq became independent in 1932) were the first to attempt to drain the marshes, motivated by their role as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and lack of apparent economic value, as well as the potential use of the water for irrigation.

Prepared in 1951, The Haigh Report outlined a series of sluices, embankments and canals on the lower ends of the Tigris and Euphrates that would drain water for agriculture.

These notably included the Main Outfall Drain (MOD), a large canal also referred to as the Third River, and the Nasiriyah Drainage Pump Station.

[11] By the mid-1980s, the marshes had become a refuge for people persecuted by the Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein (Shi'ites in particular), and a low-level insurgency had developed against the drainage and resettlement projects, led by Sheik Abdul Kerim Mahud al-Muhammadawi of the Al bu Muhammad under the nom de guerre Abu Hatim.

[13] The flow southwards from the distributary streams of the Tigris was blocked by large embankments and discharged into the Al-Amarah or Glory Canal, resulting in the loss of two-thirds of the Central Marshes by as early as 1993.

They were characterised by tall qasab reeds but included a number of freshwater lakes, of which the largest were the Haur az-Zikri and Umm al-Binni (literally "mother of binni", the latter being a species of barbel).

[19] According to a 2001 United Nations Environmental Programme report, the projects resulted in:[20] The water diversion plan, which was accompanied by a series of propaganda articles by the Iraqi regime directed against the Ahwaris,[21] systematically converted the wetlands into a desert, forcing the residents out of their settlements in the region.

Article 2.c of the Genocide Convention (to which Iraq had acceded in 1951[26]) forbids "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

Additionally, the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 says that "the only legitimate object which States should endeavour to accomplish during war is to weaken the military forces of the enemy", a provision potentially violated by the Ba'athist government as part of their campaign against the insurgents which had taken refuge in the marshlands.

However, the wetlands have since shrunk to 58% of their pre-drainage area and are projected to drop below 50% as a result of Turkish and Iranian damming of the Tigris and Euphrates, which the UN reports has reduced the combined volume of the rivers by 60%.