Baghdad reopens Sadr City’s Jawader Street, closed since 2003

BAGHDAD — Traffic authorities on Sunday reopened Jawader Street, the main road through Mredi Market in Baghdad’s Sadr City, ending a closure that dated back to 2003, as part of a drive to ease congestion in the capital.

The reopened section of the street, also known as Mredi Street, runs from the Orzdi intersection to the Imam Ali intersection, the General Traffic Directorate said in a statement. It said the work followed directives from Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi and was overseen by Interior Minister Yasser al-Maliki.

Lt. Gen. Uday Samir al-Hassani, the director general of traffic, opened the road as head of the committee tasked with easing traffic congestion, the directorate said. It described the step as part of a wider program to improve traffic flow, ease the burden on the public and upgrade Baghdad’s roads.

The reopening follows months of work to clear unlicensed stalls and shopfronts from Jawader Street and the markets around it. Mredi Market is one of the main commercial areas of Sadr City, a densely populated district in eastern Baghdad.

Vendors from Mredi Market had spread onto the road and the intersections around it, blocking traffic, and municipal efforts to move them failed for years.

Khaldoun Abbas, director of Sadr City’s First Municipality, told the state-run Iraqi News Agency on Oct. 28 that the municipality had begun reopening Jawader Street and removing vendors who had encroached on Mredi Market. He said the municipality had registered every stall holder and would rent them shops in new markets it is building itself, without investors.

The first of those markets will have 523 shops, and two later phases will add 800 and then 1,000, Abbas said. Monthly rents will not exceed 250,000 dinars (about $160 at the official rate), the top rate for large butcher shops, he said.

The municipality launched a campaign against encroachments in nearby Souq al-Hay and along Jawader Street in September 2025, saying vendors’ stalls had narrowed the main road by more than 21 meters.

The reopening came a day after Zaidi toured Sadr City on Saturday evening, according to his media office. He visited Sadr General Hospital to review its needs, met young people at a neighborhood football field and spoke with residents at a cafe and a restaurant, where they raised complaints about services and living conditions, the office said.

Zaidi then directed service ministries and Baghdad’s municipality and governorate to speed up services in the district, INA reported.