Infrastructure of Qamishli: between anvil of rain and hammer of negligence

The infrastructure of the city of Qamishli (northeast of Syria), in terms of roads and bridges, suffers from great damage. A lot of diggings as well as the erosion of asphalt In the public roads, inside the city and the roads linking the city to the countryside. The bridges have been partially destroyed in the countryside, as the heavy rain of the year contributed to the deterioration of the infrastructure in the region, in general.

The infrastructure of the road network has been poor over the past years, for the maintenance of roads was limited to patching, and the use of low quality materials.

The main and public road network can be observed in all cities, which is considered a concern for cars and machineries’ drivers, and trucks’ drivers in particular,  who work for their livelihood, where they complain about the damage caused to their vehicles, forcing them to pay additional costs  for the maintenance of their cars.

The taxi drivers in the city of Qamishli, suffer from continuous damage of their cars, because of the holes in the roads, on which they have to cross dozens of times a day.

“It cost me 127,000 Syrian pounds to do the maintenance of tuning to my car,” says a city center driver, Yousif Muhammad, to North press. As tuning of cars is the hardest hit parts, and it has to be fixed every month on a regular basis.

“It’s not a problem to pay and get my car fixed, it is a self-evident matter, nevertheless, it is hard to pay for the maintenance every month, because of  bad road,” says the 40-year-old driver. Some of the drivers gathering around him agreed, where they filled some of the holes with stones .

“We have filled  one of the holes, because it is dangerous, we cannot wait  for the municipality to come,” says Ali, 45 years old.

  Drivers move away from deep diggings, out of fear for their cars, that they, sometimes, collide in narrow streets.

The municipality started the rehabilitation of Antariya road, about 2 km,  the line of cabs from the district to the market, which made it difficult to pass through, and caused considerable damage to cars.

Ali Zidan, a 40-year-old, whose cab operates on the road between Antariya and the market line, said: “When we get here,(the road that being rehabilitated), we have to pass it in the opposite direction.” Although, Zidan says, that he did not violate the rules of traffic police, yet, he assures that if they catch him, they will, surely, hand him a traffic ticket.

The situation of road network in the countryside is as bad as the city. A number of  bridges and side roads have been demolished by rainfalls, in addition to the roads that asphalt is no longer clear to the eyes, in large sections of roads, because of wear and erosion.

” The roads are full of diggings, especially those of sewage, and between each one and another, there is another one.” says Hasan Ali, a taxi driver. “The roads of Hammara village, which are almost destroyed by floods and rain , as well as other villages. If these bridges are disrupted, the villagers will be cut off from the city. ” He added.

The local media quoted officials, as allocating 42 billion Syrian pounds for road and sewage network projects and the rehabilitation of damaged bridges in northeast Syria of the Self Administration.

“The budget allocated for the first quarter of this year was one billion Syrian pounds and the  second quadrant plan will be 4.5 billion.” Abdulahad Gawriya, the co-chair of the municipality and environment in Aljazeera province, including the cities and villages of Hasaka governorate, said to North Press. 

According to Gawriya, municipal authority has conducted full studies on the strategic road network and the interconnected ones between cities, as well as bridges. However, the studies are excess to the stated budget. “We will start prioritizing, for example, we will open a road that parallels the airport’s, to be an alternative to Ali faro road, and it will be completed this year, in addition to other roads, such as, the Amuda-Qamishli road and Amuda-Hasaka road.” Said Gawriya

However, most of the roads will be treated by patching, which is temporary, which is often urgent and inefficient. Some roads have been patched in the past two summers without persisting more than one winter. Technicians attribute the reason to the poor quality of some materials used in the asphalt-laying operations, of which good qualities of local production are difficult to found.

Zozan Ibrahim, co-chair of the west part of Qamishli municipality, told North Press that “the priorities of the municipality’s work are the city’s cabs’ line and sewage network.” Taxis lines are the most affected, and their drivers are the most grumbling, for passing through these roads dozens of times a day , which cause their cars continuous malfunctions.

“The committees of communes in the districts have submitted a study, in cooperation with the municipalities, on the most affected street and sewage network. Priority will be ordered, because we cannot meet all the requests, yet, we will try to cover a large part of them,” Said Ibrahim, regarding the mechanism of municipalities.

A considerable part of the small budget of the municipalities has been spent on gardens and tree planting. “This year, we will focus on the rehabilitation of roads and sewage networks, because it is our priority,” explained Ibrahim.

Although municipalities and officials try to blame the heavy rain of this year,  it is almost as if the weather has accelerated the process of sabotaging the road network. Last year rainfall was much lower, but roads were also sabotaged, Sewage networks  block every time it rains, it is an ongoing problem, plus, bridges have become old and need to be repaired. The rain announced the start.