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Syria
A displaced Syrian girl fills water from a cistern at an IDP camp near the Syrian-Turkish border in Idlib. Photo: Anas Alkharboutli / AP
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkey once again blocked flow of water from the Euphrates river into Kurdish-held areas in northeast Syria (Rojava) on Tuesday, according to local officials, debilitating utility supply to residents.
Ilham Ahmed, president of the Executive Committee of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), said on Tuesday that Ankara has “intentionally” withheld the Euphrates water to induce “a real drought in Syria.”
“The Euphrates river has provided water to the people since the beginning of civilization. Turkey with its upstream dams intentionally decreased the water level today to cause a real drought in Syria,” she said, sharing footage from what appears to be a dried-up riverbed.
Turkey and its Syrian proxies launched a military operation against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria in October, invading the towns of Sari Kani (Ras al-Ain) and Gire Spi (Tal Abyad).
Since then, the SDF-controlled areas have lived under intermittent blockages of water from Turkey. Ankara-backed militants who have suggested exchange of water with electricity, with the latter produced more abundantly in Kurdish-controlled areas than in the two occupied towns, a proposal dismissed by Kurds.
Jihad Bayram, head of the office for the Rojava Dam in Tabqa, told Rudaw on Wednesday that water blockade has cut its water volume by almost two-thirds, severely impacting the region’s economy and agriculture.
“We have decreased the provision of public electricity to 10 hours [per day] to consume the water economically,” Bayram said.
“We are supposed to receive 500 cubic meters of water [per second], but this has decreased to 160 cubic meters.”
Turkey and its allied militants have received international condemnation for the repeated cut of water supply to Rojava.
“Turkish authorities' failure to ensure adequate water supplies to Kurdish-held areas in Northeast Syria is compromising humanitarian agencies' ability to prepare and protect vulnerable communities in the COVID-19 pandemic,” Human Rights Organization (HRW) said in a report published late March.
Cuts to water flow are of added danger amid the outbreak of coronavirus, whose spread can be partly be limited by frequent handwashing and other water-based hygiene practices.
Though confirmed cases of the virus in Rojava remain low by global standards, UNICEF warned in late March that nearly half a million inhabitants of the city of Hasaka were deprived from flow of water from the occupied town of Sari Kani, where the Allouk water station is based.
"The interruption of water supply during the current efforts to curb the spread of the Coronavirus disease puts children and families at unacceptable risk," Fran Equiza, the agency's representative in Syria, said in a statement.
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