AMMAN — A
conflagration which swept across farmland in the
Jordan Valley this week and
lasted for three consecutive days before coming under control damaged crops and
resulted in losses to farmers, who accused Israel of being behind the blaze.
اضافة اعلان
Jordan Valley
farmers told
Jordan News that that Civil Defense cadres tried to control
the fire, but it got out of control, and spread to nearby bushes because the
terrain was difficult to access since it lied in a security-monitored zone on
the Western border with Israel.
Jamal Al-Masalha,
a secretary-general of the Jordan Farmers Union, accused Israel of causing the
flame to erupt.
“We got used to
this arson attack every year, and it was carried out by the Israeli side,
taking advantage of the dry weeds and farms,” Masalha told
Jordan News.
He pointed out
that the fire “spread across seven kilometers from Damia Bridge to Al-Zawriah
area.”
He said that the
armed forces had circulated to farmers not to use the “Jordan River’s water for
irrigation and noted the necessity of removing the pumps from it.”
“We are suffering
from restrictions from the Jordanian authorities on farmers, while the Israeli
side is benefiting from the river’s water“, he pointed out.
Akram Haimour,
owner of palm and lemon tree farmland, told
Jordan News “we want drastic
solutions to tackle these frequent fires.”
“We are tired of
these redundant incidents, which happen constantly without any serious action
taken on the ground,” he said.
He asserted that
“controlling the fire was not easy due to the sensitivity of the borders and
the difficultly accessing the farms.”
Haimour also said
that “the direct losses amounted to 200 trees. We might need a few days to have
accurate information and figures on the impact of the bonfire on the rest of
the trees, especially since the heat exacerbated the negative effects.”
He predicted that
the burned area may need tens of years to grow trees there again, “and in one
day they were burned completely, while our government is not serious about
solving this problem.”
“We do not want
compensation, we want a radical solution”, he insisted.
Head of the
farmers’ union
Adnan Khaddam told
Jordan News that “we got used to having
brushfires in the Jordan Valley every year, but they were delayed for some time
this year.”
The
director-general of the Jordan Farmers’ Union, Mahmoud Al-Oran, told
Jordan
News that “there have been repeated calls for the use of herbicides to
prevent the spread of fires over large areas, but there has been no response
from the official authorities.”
He stressed that
there was an “urgent need to allow farmers to monitor their farms at night to
avoid disasters.”
Read more Features
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
