Turkey uses water as a weapon against the civilian population in northern Syria. The result: dry fields and a lack of power supply.
Frankfurt – Water is particularly valuable for the people in northern Syria. The people in the area, Kurds call this region Rojava, have less and less of it at their disposal. For example, the Allouk waterworks has been occupied by the Turkish military since 2019. As a result, people in the region have less and less water available. Global warming is also contributing to groundwater levels falling and fields becoming increasingly dry. The main reason for the water shortage in the region is that the Türkiye less and less water is allowed to pass through the Euphrates to its neighboring country.
Türkiye lets less than half of the agreed water into its neighboring country
“The Euphrates is the most important water source for the northern Syria region, which is also controlled by Turkey. Turkey committed itself to this in a 1987 treaty Syria to allow 500 cubic meters per second to flow through to their neighboring country,” says scientist Şermin Güven in an interview fr.de from IPPEN.MEDIA. Güven is a cultural and social anthropologist and a doctoral student at the Free University of Berlin. In the past five years, however, Turkey has let through less than 200 cubic meters per second of the agreed amount, causing immense water stress for the civilian population, the scientist reports.
Güven criticizes the fact that the quality of water from Turkey is also becoming worse and worse. Dirty water is also being let through to northern Syria. Diseases such as cholera, typhus, hepatitis A and diphtheria are therefore observed in humans.
In addition to power outages and limited laboratory capacities, access to clean water is also deteriorating in overcrowded hospitals, making it difficult to contain epidemics that could actually be avoided, said Güven.
Only five hours of electricity per day in Kobane due to water shortages
The consequences of water shortages can be seen in the city of Kobane. “The people of the northern Syrian city of Kobane are suffering from an acute lack of drinking water, the hospitals are overcrowded because gastrointestinal diseases are rampant and the fields are withering. Since electricity is mainly generated from hydropower, there is only 5 hours of electricity a day in Kobane, for example,” says the chairwoman of the Frankfurt-Kobane City Friendship Association, Bianca Winter.
Turkey not only terrorizes the people in the Kurdish-majority northeast of Syria with constant military attacks, but also uses water as a weapon, says Winter. This also leads to more refugees wanting to go to Europe. Experts want to discuss the topic on Sunday Event of the Frankfurt Association.
Water is a human right
The human rights organization Medico International also criticizes Türkiye’s actions. Turkey also uses water as a weapon of war in the region. Water is a human right, this is being violated in northeast Syria,” said Anita Starosta, the consultant for Syria, Turkey and Iraq at medico international, in an interview with our editorial team.
According to Kamal Sido, Middle East consultant at the Society for Threatened Peoples, water scarcity is causing major problems for people. “This policy has catastrophic consequences for people. Without water in a country wracked by war and violence, people cannot survive. Almost everyone thinks about emigration,” Sido tells us in an interview fr.de.
Germany is damaging its own reputation in the Middle East
Sido is annoyed at how the federal government is strengthening Turkey’s position in every respect. “The traffic light government is letting Erdogan have his way. The people of Germany must no longer accept this policy of the federal government. “It damages Germany’s reputation in the Middle East,” warns the human rights expert.
The Türkiye, on the other hand, wants to weaken self-government in the area and drive out the Kurdish population in other parts of the region. The proportion of the Kurdish population in Afrin was over 90 percent until it was occupied by the Turkish military in 2018 The proportion of Kurds today is less than 30 percent.
Khaled Davrisch, representative of the self-administration of North and East Syria in Germany, is therefore calling for an end to Ankara’s measures against the people in the area. “Turkey’s water embargo against northern and eastern Syria is not only a humanitarian tragedy, but also an alarming example of the use of water as a weapon against the civilian population,” Davrisch also said in an interview fr.de.
So far there are no consequences for Turkey
So far, Turkey’s actions against the neighboring country have had no consequences for the president’s government Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The experts we spoke to even confirmed to us that the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development has now even stopped project aid for organizations that want to help people in the region. A measure by the federal government that makes Ankara happy, but worsens the suffering of the people in the area.
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