An Iraqi government official said on Thursday that more than 110 archeological sites that were uncovered in the 1990s under Saddam Hussein's regime in the city of Naseriyah are at risk of being lost, DPA reported.
"After the marshes in the area were drained under the previous regime, over 110 archeological sites were discovered. The return of water to the marshlands threatens to submerge the sites again," Haydar Abulwahid al-Banyan, deputy governor of Naseriyah, told the German Press Agency dpa.
A request has been made by the Ministry of Culture to the secretariat of the Council of Ministers to protect and maintain the sites, al-Banyan said.
Protecting the sites requires costly and labor-intensive procedures such as building sand barriers, he added.
The city of Naseriyah, roughly 375 kilometres south of the capital of Baghdad, is historically rich, with more than 1,200 known archaeological sites from successive civilisations spanning 7,000 years.