UNITED NATIONS, July 23 (Xinhuanet) -- The United Nations has announced a multi-million dollar project to help restore the marshlands of southern Iraq, considered to be the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden, a UN Spokesman said Friday.

    UN Spokesman Fred Eckhard told a press briefing in New York that the 11 million dollar plan, funded by the government of Japan,will support sustainable development through environmentally sound technologies.

    It will also provide drinking water, sanitation and pilot wetland restoration for the Marsh Arabs, heirs to the 5,000-year-old civilization of the Babylonians and Sumerians.

    Eckhard said that the marshlands were massively damaged by damson the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and a vast drainage operation carried out by the ousted regime of Iraq. Enditem