Iraq on Sunday burnt some six tons of unlawful medication together with huge piles of hashish, captagon and cocaine, in what officers mentioned was the biggest destruction for over a decade.
Government officers, carrying white coveralls and face masks, piled the medication in holes dug into the sand, doused them with gas and set them on fireplace.
Health Minister Saleh al-Hasnawi, talking on the occasion exterior a army base near the capital Baghdad, mentioned it was the primary “destruction operation of this magnitude” since 2009.
The medication had been seized by “forces at border crossings” and different websites in Iraq, he mentioned, with a few of them saved for a number of years.
Security forces have intensified narcotics operations lately with near-daily bulletins of drug seizures and arrests of traffickers.
Areas bordering Iran have change into main narcotic trafficking routes for medication, together with crystal methamphetamine.
Vast plumes of black smoke rose into the sky because the shares had been set on fireplace, which included 350 kilogrammes (770 kilos) of cocaine and 54 million tablets — together with 5 million tablets of the amphetamine-type stimulant captagon, a authorities official mentioned.
Quantities of crystal methamphetamine and cannabis had been additionally destroyed.
The majority of the destroyed medication originated from Iran, however Lebanon and neighbouring Syria had been additionally sources, the federal government official mentioned.
While some drug traffickers use Iraq as a transit level, the nation has additionally seen an explosion in home gross sales and consumption lately.
