Kobani farmers demanding protection for their crops
Kobani – North-Press Agency
Mohamed Habash
The farmers of the city of Kobani and the town of Serrin held a sit-in in front of the Autonomous Administration building in Kobani, protesting the delay in distributing the fuel oil intended for them, and the Administration says it has difficulties. The Autonomous Administration of northeastern Syria allocates fuel oil to farmers via the Agriculture Office of the Hydrocarbons Office in the region, where it is adopted in the process of fuel distribution through the preparation of schedules by the Agriculture Authority to determine the number of farmers, cultivated areas and water wells.
The protesters who staged a sit-in on Monday, expressed their dissatisfaction with the situation in the region, accusing the administration of failing to speed up of providing solutions.
Dry season
Ibrahim Mohammed, a farmer from Serrin told North-Press that the season he planted had been completely damaged, and he had to buy oil fuel to water his cultivated land but that could not save it. He added: "We demand our right to protect our crops.”
Radi Hadidan, another farmer from Kobani pointed out that they are buying oil at an expensive price, which is approximately 37,000 Syrian pounds. This has increased the burden on the farmers.
Kobani and Serrin are agricultural areas, where most of the population depends on agriculture and on fuel for operating the generators of water wells to irrigate their lands, especially when rainfall is delayed.
Difficulties
The protesters met with Mohammad Shahin, the deputy chairman of the Executive Council of the Euphrates region (Kobani, Tal Abyad and Serrin), demanding to solve the problem of fuel, which negatively affects the agricultural season. Shahin told North-Press: "As an administration, we have difficulties in securing their diesel fuel.”
He added that there are factors that have negatively affected securing of fuel due to the recent circumstances in the region. He pointed out that the Turkish invasion of north-eastern Syria created difficulties in the delivery of fuel oil to the region, where the Turkish military and its affiliated armed opposition groups control parts of M4 highway, which was considered the most important and strategic route to deliver the allocated fuel to the region.
Promises to solve
Shahin explained that because of the emergency situation in the region, they were delayed in processing the distribution tables, so the allocated fuel oil was not distributed to farmers for the winter agriculture. According to Mr. Shahin, northeastern Syria does not have advanced refineries that can provide an allocation for the entire region, so "there is a shortage of fuel oil in general," he said.
"People are suffering as winter arrives, especially the farmers, we are trying as much as possible to overcome the problems and speed up the allocations process, where the allocations will be distributed in the upcoming days,” Shahin concluded.