In the province of Basra, in southern Iraq, which has a population of 3 million, tens of thousands of cases of cancer have been diagnosed between 2009 and 2022, particularly among children and newborn babies. In addition to radiotoxic emissions and climate change, the region's inhabitants are victims of harmful carbon dioxide and benzene emissions generated by the combustion of methane from the oil industry.

According to regulations, oil refineries should be located at least 15 kilometres from homes. But many oil burners, those torches that burn continuously, are located less than 4 kilometres or even a few hundred metres from houses. In Nahran Omar, a town with around 2,000 families, the Basra Oil Company oil field, which has been operational since 2008, is less than 200 metres from some homes. Hundreds of people in the town have died of cancer in recent years. Yet when residents call the Ministry of Health to account, the latter denies any correlation between benzene levels in the air and water and the explosion in cancer cases in the region.