Diseases and epidemics spread in Qamishli’s neighborhoods due to animal’s stockyards
Qamishli – North-Press Agency
Ibrahim Ibrahimi
Local residents of the eastern neighborhoods of the city of Qamishli such as Jamaya, Judy, Qasrka Ghia (Umm al-Fursan) Gire Resh suffer unpleasant smells which caused by the sheep and calves’ stockyards, where tons of animal waste are collected in the form of hills within residential houses.
The residents of these neighborhoods have submitted a complaint to the Administration of the District of Qamishli of the Autonomous Administration, in order to find a solution for these odors, where tons of animal waste is collected and became a fertile incubator for flies and harmful insects, submitted by ten Komins (a group of committees composed of residents of a neighborhood to runs its affairs).
“1500 signature”
Sulaiman Jaafar Hussein, the head of Jamaya Neighborhood Komin told North-Press that they had collected 1,500 signatures from 10 komins and handed them over to the district administration, saying: “The district administration has promised to study the case and transfer the stockyards to another area.”
Spread of flies
Residents of these neighborhoods complain about the high incidence of disease due to frequent flies carrying disease and the proliferation of harmful insects.
Khader Mahmoud al-Ali, a resident of Jamaya, calls on the district administration to clean the neighborhood of dirt and extend the sewage, “Because we live among flies and smells and we are badly affected”.
Mustafa Abdi Suleiman, from the same neighborhood, said that the owners of the barns do not live in the neighborhoods where their stockyards are located, pointing out that most of them are not residents of the area, but from other areas like Aleppo and Manbij, noting that they suffer the dirt and the spread of flies and diseases in the neighborhood.
According to the submitted complaint by 1500 people to the district of Qamishli, “diseases have widely spread among people of the area, especially among children who are constantly infected with respiratory diseases, lungs, enteritis, and finally leishmaniasis, as a result of the great environmental pollution that surrounds us”
,
Hajj Abdulsalam from Jamaya neighborhood said.
“There is no life in our neighborhood, we are almost 20,000 people at risk of death; can we all be victims of barns?” He asked.
Promises
The number of animal’s stockyards and its waste is increasing among the residential neighborhoods, while the residents said in the complaint paper which was submitted to the district: “The municipality of Qamishli had granted permission to opening a livestock market and a slaughterhouse in our area.”
The Local Administration and Environment Authority of al-Jazira region (administrative division includes the areas of Qamishli and Hasakah), told North-Press that they have been looking for a solution for two years, and now they are in the process of resolving the problem.
In this regard, Sama Bakdash, the co-chair of the Local Administration and Environment Authority in al-Jazira region says: “We are taking serious steps to solve this problem, which we have allocated a piece of land of about 35 dunums to transfer the stockyards noting that the project will continue from a year to two years until the barns are fully transferred.
These stockyards were built in the 1970s, i.e. nearly half a century ago, their number, according to the Municipal and Environment Authority has reached more than 500 barns, which are spread in the neighborhoods in the eastern entrance of the city of Qamishli, and most owners of the stockyards do not invest their barns, but they are rented to others, while only17 owners live in the mentioned neighborhoods.
Residents of the neighborhoods mentioned in the submitted complaint paper demand: “the removal of the barns, the cleaning of their place, then transferring them into a place for productive, clean and environmentally friendly projects