More than 5,000 cases of suffocation were recorded due to the dust storm, which is the seventh in just a month.

As for Najaf, it recorded "more than 100 cases of suffocation as a result of the dust storm," announced the Health Department in the governorate located in southern Iraq and 332 cases in Salah al-Din in central Iraq, and 100 cases in Diwaniyah in the south.

The health authorities in Anbar and Kirkuk provinces in the north called on residents not to leave their homes, the Iraqi News Agency reported.

The dust storm is expected to gradually recede on Thursday, according to the director of media for the Iraqi Meteorological Authority, Amer Al-Jabri. In an interview with the Iraqi News Agency, dust storms will likely continue during May.

In the past two months, dust storms have recurred unprecedentedly in Iraq. Experts attribute them to climate change, lack of rain, and desertification. The latest of which led to the closure of Baghdad and Najaf international airports due to lack of visibility.

Iraq is one of the five countries most vulnerable to climate change and desertification globally, especially the increasing drought with high temperatures that exceed 50 degrees Celsius for days in the summer.
The World Bank warned last November of a 20% decrease in Iraq's water resources by 2050 due to climate change.

In an interview with the Iraqi News Agency, the Director-General of the Technical Department of the Iraqi Ministry of Environment warned of the increase in sandstorms, especially after the number of dusty days increased to "272 days per year for a period of two decades." He predicted, "It will reach 300 dusty days a year in 2050."

According to the ministry, increasing vegetation cover and planting forests with dense trees that serve as windbreaks are the most critical solutions needed to reduce the rate of sandstorms.