Turkey deprives northeast Syria of water for eighth time

HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – Turkey and its affiliated armed opposition armed groups cut off water from the Alouk reservoir, which supplies water to areas in the Autonomous Administration-controlled Hasakah region, for the second time in two days. Officials from the Water Directorate in Hasakah met with a Russian delegation to ask Turkey to restart the flow of water.

Khaled Hami, an official in the Water Directorate in the municipality of Shaab said that "Turkey stopped the work of water station on Monday for the second time in the past two days.”

Hami added in a statement to North Press that they had met with Russian military leaders at the Russian base in Mubagir station, north of Tel Tamr, on Monday to solve the problem and restart the station.

According to Hami, the Russian leaders "denied their knowledge that the Turkish forces cut water to Alouk station again, and promised to communicate with Turkey to solve this problem as soon as possible."

As a result of the residents’ repeated complaints about water shortages, the municipality of Tel Tamr distributed water through tanks to the residents, and re-activated the old water resources in the area.

This is the eighth time that Turkish Armed Forces and Turkish-backed armed opposition groups have cut off water to Hasakah since they took control of the cities of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad and their surrounding countrysides in October of 2019. Since this time, residents in the region have reported many other human rights abuses, including theft, looting, assault, kidnapping and murder.

(Reporting by Delsouz Yousef, editing by Lucas Chapman)