Northeast Syria facing slow-moving disaster due to water shortage: PAX
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – A new report by the Dutch peace organization PAX said that there is a risk of crisis in northeast Syria due to increasing and widespread water shortages in the region.
🆕The drought of 2021 hit #Syria's countryside hard. Vulnerable groups like pastoralists struggle with water shortages and lack of vegetation. In our new report we explore how this turned Syria into a new #climatesecurity hotspot. 1/x:
— Wim Zwijnenburg (@wammezz) February 16, 2022
📸@Delilsoulemanhttps://t.co/Jetv2j0orI pic.twitter.com/EUmEgFvv43
In the report, published on Wednesday, PAX conducted dozens of interviews with pastoralists, farmers, and local authorities, combining its findings with satellite analysis and humanitarian data. The summer of 2021 saw record low levels of rainfall and a sharp decline in water flow into the Euphrates and other rivers in northeast Syria affecting rural communities.
A recent Pentagon Watchdog report also confirmed the PAX report findings. Citing USAID and other NGOs, PAX said that as of December, reports indicated a more than 70 percent decrease in northeast Syria's 2021 wheat crop yields compared to the 2020 harvest.
Hasakah was the worst affected governorate, with decreases of 75 percent in 13 subdistricts, including seven subdistricts that experienced losses of 90 percent or more.
"Humanitarian actors warned that the 2021 harvest's alarmingly low crop yields in northeast Syria will adversely affect food security and diminish supply chains for staple commodities such as flour," the report said.
Failing crops
"Across this part of the country, many livestock herds halved in size – or worse. Farmers registered drops in crop yields of up to 90 percent, if they produced anything at all. Amid soaring food prices and services and quality of life that are deteriorating in lockstep with the area's enormous agricultural and pastoralism sectors, few rural – or even urban – Syrians in the northeast have been spared the fallout from these trouble," the PAX report said.
NGOs anticipate that bread prices in northeast Syria will increase during the 2022 cropping season and into 2023, "as depleted harvest stocks and supply constraints drive prices upward."
USAID START provided 2,880 metric tons of improved wheat seed imported from the Kurdistan Region.
Read More: 3,000 tons of wheat seeds arrive in northeast Syria: SDF
The PAX report also revealed that pastoralist communities of Syria are increasingly struggling with the impact of climate change with lower prices for livestock and unpredictable weather conditions that impact livestock prices.
Risk of instability
The report also said that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) lacks sufficient finances, capacity, and expertise to address these devastating climate and environmental challenges.
The report also said, "deteriorating service provision and security is contributing to anti-administration sentiment, especially in some Arab-majority areas, where locals question the Kurdish-dominated body's right to govern – and where IS and other groups are looking to win over dissatisfied locals."
Read More: Protests erupt in Arab-majority Raqqa over deteriorating living conditions
"By cutting off water and sabotaging the economy, Turkey is trying to stoke unrest, senior administration officials allege," the report added.
The Dutch NGO report also said that farmers and herders lament the higher prices for water tankers and that there are worrying signs of mounting tensions between the suppliers of these tankers and their rural customers.
"In a desperate attempt to find a better life, interviewees often expressed their desire to migrate as they fail to see a future for them in the broken countryside of Syria," the report said.
Moreover, the report added that the lack of rain and water in the rivers is also worsening the public and environmental health situation.
Turkish disruptions
On top of this, dams were built in the Khabur river in the spring of 2021, and the water flow to Hasakah from the Alouk water station was deliberately stopped dozens of times by Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militants, leaving 600,000 people with little to no water for long periods.
The Alouk water station is near the border town of Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye), which Turkey and its militant proxies invaded in October 2019 during Ankara's so-called Peace Spring military operation.
Turkey has previously denied it was responsible for cutting off the water supply.
Read More: Turkish-backed groups built three dams to cut off water to SDF-held northeast Syria: PAX
The report also said that throughout 2021, the SNA made frequent incursions into the northeast, heavily shelling the Tal Tamir area and terrifying farmers into inactivity well beyond the battle lines. There was also an increasing number of Turkish drone strikes.
"The situation has helped dissuade farmers from expending scarce resources on fields that they feel might be appropriated at any moment," the report said.
The report, therefore, warns that a solution needs to be found soon to prevent a fallback into further instability and violence.
Need for solution
"The unstable political situation of northeast Syria hinders a long-term sustainable solution to the many climate and security challenges this part of the country faces," read the report.
Therefore, it added, there is a need for "regional diplomatic initiative to prevent and mitigate conflict over the use of transboundary water resources, including the Euphrates and other relevant rivers", building on Hasakah's International Water Forum in 2021.
The report also said there is a need to step-up "international pressure to find a political solution for northeast Syria that accounts for regional security concerns."
"Such a solution could bolster stability, boost donor investment, and facilitate more rapid wartime reconstruction, particularly for the agricultural sector, and in the areas of environmental infrastructure and natural resource exploitation."
It also said US sanctions on Syria need to include "humanitarian, agricultural, and clean water access exemptions, to ensure that aid to rural communities is not impeded."
The AANES has often called for exemptions to develop northeast Syria's economy.
"Many international businesses are so wary of falling afoul of sanctions that they won't do business with Syria, even in areas that are permissible. This can be particularly true of the northeast, which is doubly isolated," the report added.
The report also said the UN Security Council should reauthorize cross-border humanitarian aid operations to northern Syria through the Bab al-Hawa crossing, reopen the closed al-Yarubiyah crossing, that was closed in January 2020 due to a Chinese and Russian veto, and ensure that vital food and water assistance can get to those who most need it.
"This is particularly important in times of drought and/or when authorities are unable or unwilling to accommodate the needs of these communities."