Kurdish NGO in NE Syria calls on INGOs for support against cholera
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – On Tuesday, Hussein Amin, co-chair of the Kurdish Red Crescent (humanitarian non-profit organization operating in northeast Syria), said they contacted international non-governmental organizations for the sake of providing support to fight cholera outbreak.
In an audio statement to North Press, Amin added that the Kurdish Red Crescent “held meetings with all health committees and hospital managers in the area to put plans to curb the cholera spread.”
The areas in the eastern countryside of Deir ez-Zor, Raqqa and Hasakah witness notable increase in cholera cases due to water contamination and rivers drought as a result of Turkey’s water cut-offs.
The low level of the Euphrates is related to Turkey’s ongoing seizure of the river’s water, in addition to the climate change and the two years of drought which the area went through, according to North Press previous reports.
Since April 2021, it has been observed that the river level has significantly decreased, reaching less than 200 m³ per second.
By doing this, Turkey deprives northeastern Syria of its share of water violating the international agreement it signed with Syria in 1987 which stated that Syria’s share of water coming from Turkey is 500 m³ per second.
According to official reports, the level of flow towards Syrian territory has decreased over the past years to less than 200 m³ per second, which is less than half of the agreed amount.
On September 10, the Autonomous Administration of North and east Syria (AANES) recorded three deaths from cholera disease.
The co-chair of the Kurdish Red Crescent mentioned that the plans stipulate “activating the role of raising awareness teams within centers and cities to prevent the disease of spreading.”
He added, “We have contacted platforms of INGOs to coordinate in order to cooperate and provide support to our regions in the event of the disease outbreak.”
He went further, saying, “We have also coordinated with the Health Board of the AANES and organizations, working in the health sector in our regions, to cooperate in order to block the path to the disease spread.”
The AANES was first formed in 2014 in the Kurdish-majority regions of Afrin, Kobani and Jazira in northern Syria following the withdrawal of the government forces. Later, it was expanded to Manbij, Tabqa, Raqqa, Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) defeated ISIS militarily.