Human Rights Watch on Monday (July 22nd) warned of a repeat of last year's deadly water crisis in Iraq's southern province of Basra unless authorities correct decades of management failures, AFP reported.

Nearly 120,000 people were hospitalised last summer after drinking polluted water, in a mass health crisis that sparked deadly protests.

In a report, HRW found the generally poor state of water quality was likely compounded by algae that rapidly spread last year in the Shatt al-Arab waterway that runs through Basra and provides it with its primary water source.

It indicated that the algae, pollution and high salination could together have sparked the mass health crisis.

"These combined failures violate Basra residents' rights to water, sanitation, health, information, and property guaranteed under international and national law," it said.

HRW said Iraqi officials had not properly communicated with citizens about the emergency at the time, nor released the results of probes in the year since or dealt with underlying causes.

"What our research brought out very clearly is that the crisis in Basra has not ended," said Belkis Wille, HRW's senior Iraq researcher.

She told AFP that officials had an obligation to communicate to all Iraqi citizens about the state of their drinking water.

"This is the right of citizens," Wille said.