Fighting between the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) near the Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates River has sparked fears over its potential collapse, especially for people living downstream which include Iraq.
“Iraq has a large storage capacity in the Haditha Dam and the Habbaniyah and Razzaza lakes on the Euphrates River, and in the event of large waves of water arriving, it is possible to absorb any flows,” director general for dams and reservoirs in Iraq’s water resources ministry, told state media.
“In the event of water waves arriving in the Euphrates, the Ministry of Water Resources has taken all necessary measures to absorb this water,” he affirmed.
On Saturday, the manager of Tishreen Dam told Rudaw English that the structure is out of service due to days of attacks by SNA militants, warning that millions of people are at grave risk should the structure fall.
The attacks intensified after the SNA took control of Manbij city from the SDF as rebel fighters led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Damascus.
Ali Demir, the dam manager, shared voice records with Rudaw English of the staff desperately pleading for help.
The dam sits upstream from scores of towns and villages, as well as urban settlements like Raqqa, and provides electricity to most of northeast Syria (Rojava). It holds two million cubic meters of water.
