Garden of Eden drying out

GARDEN OF EDEN (Hor al-Hammar), Iraq — A severe drought is threatening Iraq's southern marshes -- the traditional site of the biblical [Christian, Judaic, and Islamic] Garden of Eden -- just as the region was recovering from Saddam Hussein's draining of its lakes and swamps to punish a political rebellion.

Marshes that were coming back to life a few years ago with U.N. help are again little more than vast expanses of cracked earth. The area's thousands of inhabitants, known as Marsh Arabs, are victims of the debilitating drought that has ravaged much of Iraq and neighboring countries the last two years. More>>

.

VIDEO: Drought leaves marshes in jeopardy (AP)

Devas expelling humans from an earthly paradise (Wiki)

• Has the Garden of Eden been located at last?
• Body of a Man, Lung of a Tree?
• Another Eden: Seychelles off India (NOVA)