Diseases detected in Syria’s Raqqa due to polluted Euphrates River
RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – The pollution of the Euphrates River causes an increasing number of skin and gut diseases among patients, an official at a health association in the east of Raqqa, northern Syria, said on Sunday.
Since February 2020, despite warnings of a possible humanitarian catastrophe, Turkey continues to hold Euphrates River waters. The reduction of water levels led to the pollution of the drinking water and caused diseases such as cholera.
Ibrahim al-Mehbash, director of the Sawsan Association, which supports a dispensary in the town of al-Karama in the eastern countryside of Raqqa and other hospitals and health centers in the region, said they recorded an increase in cases of “acute diarrhea, vomiting, stomach inflammation, acute intestine inflammation, typhoid fever, skin diseases, and hepatitis.”
He added in a statement to North Press that these diseases were caused due to the reduction of water levels of the Euphrates and its stagnation in addition to the increasing proportion of non-drinking water of the Balikh River mixing with the Euphrates River.
Al-Mehbash noted that approximately 200 monthly cases are received in the dispensary, and they increase more in the summer.
After the recent rainfalls, the water unit of al-Karama suspended the al-Jadida and al-Hawas stations due to high turbidity. The main reason for the contamination of the water is that these stations are located after the estuary of the Balikh River, and because of the high proportion of its water and the low level of the Euphrates.