No services in Syria’s Aleppo eastern neighborhoods, government failed keep promises
ALEPPO, Syria (North Press) – Several eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo, northern Syria, suffer from power outage and successive water cutoff though Syrian government forces have been running them for four years.
Despite the overpopulation and return of economic and commercial activities in the eastern neighborhoods of the city of Aleppo and those of the old city, they are witnessing poor services.
Electricity, which was absent from these neighborhoods during the armed opposition’s control in mid-2012, is still cut off to most of them.
Electricity, which the government promised to provide to all neighborhoods, reached to only few neighborhoods, while others such as al-Fardous, al-Sukkari, al-Marjah, Masaken Hanano, and al-Salhin are still living in darkness.
Syrian government forces retook the eastern neighborhoods of Aleppo in February 2017, but since then, there has been no service.
Following residents’ demands to deliver electricity to Aleppo, the government placed 140 generators out of 400, which the government decided about in December 2020, during the visit of the Minister of Electricity, Ghassan al-Zamel to the city of Aleppo.
“Our neighborhood has not witnessed power for nine years, we hoped that power would reach to our neighborhood this year, but all was in vain,” Sobhi Mahmoud, a resident from al-Fardous neighborhood, said.
“As a result of fuel crisis, neither our neighborhood nor others have generators,” Mahmoud added.
Additionally, due to the poor water lines and lots of malfunctions, those neighborhoods suffer from water cutoff.
“We are no more demanding electricity, paving streets, nor removing debris rather, we want water to reach to our houses,” Mamdouh al-Zayat, a resident from al-Sukkari neighborhood, told North Press.
“Sometimes, we are left without water for ten successive days under the pretext of maintaining pipes and pumping stations. Since 2017, the water problem has not been solved,” he added.