Thirst threatening 1 million people in Syria’s Hasakah due to cutting water by Turkish forces

Intense thirst threatens the lives of about one million people living in and around Syria’s northeastern city of Hasakah, as Turkish troops and allied militants continue cutting off drinking water supplies to the region by stopping a major border pumping station, a report says.

Syria’s official news agency SANA on Monday briefly but bitterly recounted the suffering of these people, who are in desperate need of drinking water in hot summer days in the northeastern province of the same name.

A day earlier, Director General of Hasakah Water Company Mahmoud al-Ukla said Turkish soldiers and militants backed by the government in Ankara had stopped Alouk Water Station on Saturday evening and that they had barred workers of the station from entering the facility.

Ukla sounded the alarm at the time the inhumane move was threatening the lives of the people of the city and its surrounding residential neighborhoods as the water station is their only source for guaranteeing the drinking water for them.

The major water station is located in the vicinity of the border town of Ra’s al-Ayn, which Turkish troops and their allied militants seized in October 2019 during the so-called Peace Spring Operation.

The water station has so far been forced to stop several times by the invading Turkish troops and their allied militants, who use it as a weapon against the inhabitants of the region.

The locals in Hasakah, the provincial capital, expressed their anger over the criminal measure of cutting off the drinking water, SANA reported on Monday. 

Turkish troops, allied militants cut off drinking water to people in Syria’s Hasakah, environs

Turkish soldiers and allied militants cut off drinking water to citizens of Syria’s Hasakah city by forcing a major water station to stop.

Ragheb, a local in Ghwairan neighborhood, said cutting water by the Turkish forces is a crime against humanity, urging the international and relief organizations to intervene.

He added that it was the eighth consecutive day that his neighborhood was without water and that other neighborhoods of the city were suffering greatly from the same problem.

According to Ukla, over the current week, the Turkish forces in the border area have stopped the Alouk station from pumping water for at least three times. 

He told SANA that workers of the station must be allowed to enter the facility and to re-operate the pumping machines there. The official also warned that the drinking water must not be used as a leverage to pressure the locals.

Back in March, the Syrian Foreign Ministry sent two identical letters to the heads of the United Nations and the UN Security Council in protest against the inhumane trend. 

It noted at the time that the Turkish military forces shelled the water station during their cross-border military operation last October, putting it out of service.

Furthermore, Syrian officials, accordingly, presented a briefing to the Council in February, informing it of a water outage in Hasakah.

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