Residents inquire about scarcity of diesel in NE Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Abdullah Younes, a resident of a neighborhood in the city of Qamishli, northeast Syria, finds no alternative for power supplied by a generator in the neighborhood that has been stopped working for several days due to lack of diesel.
Younes keeps asking the owner of the generator when he will operate it, as scorching heat of summer exceeds 40 degrees, causing his children to fall ill.
Qamishli and most cities in northeast Syria, where oil wells are scattered, suffer from lack of diesel diversity, resulting in stopping the generators from working, curbing life wheel in different aspects, and forming long queues in front of fuel stations a scene that the residents have become used to recently.
Though the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued on May 12 Syria General License (GL) 22, authorizing specific economic activities in certain non-government-held areas of northeast Syria in 12 sectors, but it does not authorize petroleum sector.
Politicians and human rights activists in northeast Syria said that the US decision regarding lifting Caesar Act sanctions on northeast Syria would not work if the main crossings in the region remain closed.
“It is true that the decision is right, but it needs many factors. First, it needs a safe region. Second, it needs the border crossings to be reopened for bringing in the raw materials. Thus, there should be chance for the products of these companies to be imported and exported,” Muhammad Barkal, a politician from Manbij, said.
In light of the scarcity of diesel, residents raise several key questions about the quantities of oil extracted from the wells, how are they consumed? Are they sold to parties outside the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) held areas?
Residents of the region mainly rely on power supplied in amps from generators and subsidized power that witnesses strict rationing due to decreasing level of Euphrates river water.
During the past two years, the level of the Euphrates has fell to unprecedented records, after the amount of water flowing from Turkey towards Syria has decreased to below 200 cubic meters per second, which is less than half the amount agreed upon between the Syrian and Turkish governments in 1987.
The 1987 agreement stipulates Turkey’s permanent commitment to pumping 500 cubic meters of water per second from the Euphrates River toward Syria.
Hassan Muhammad Anwar, owner of several amps generators in Qamishli and its countryside, said that he obtain insufficient allocations of diesel thus he is forced to stop the generators from operating for several days.
As a result, disputes and quarrels arouse between the generator’s owners and the residents.
The generator’s owners have nothing to do but to repeat justifications of owners of fuel stations that the quantities of the diesel they receive are insufficient thus they cannot meet people’s needs.
This situation forces residents to find other options to meet this problem that may cost them a lot such as buying ice blocks in order to drink cold water.
Additionally, ongoing closure of al-Ya’rubiyah border crossing with Iraq worsen the situation more, as no export or import operations are conducted within the region.
In July 2014, the UN Security Council adopted the Resolution 2165 which authorized the UN to deliver cross-border humanitarian aid to Syria through four crossings al-Ramtha crossing with Jordan, Bab al-Salam, Bab al-Hawa with Turkey, and al Ya’rubiyah (Tel Kocher) with Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), without the consent of the Syrian government.
Al-Ya’rubiyah (Tel Kocher) border-crossing is located on the Syrian-Iraqi border and was the most official crossing between the two countries prior to the Syrian conflict in 2011.