The struggle of the Kurds in Northern Syria to survive the water cuts in Turkey

Even if it is outside its borders, Turkey does not hesitate to increase the pressure on the Kurds. Either by sending drones to the mountainous provinces of Iraq or by cutting off the water supply in the north of Syria. The latest example took place in Syria, where the Turkish occupation forces in the area cut off the water supply to the Allouk pumping station, which supplies drinking water to almost a million people in the Al-Hasaka region, for more than a month, according to the digital version of Arab News this Sunday. "We haven't had water for almost the whole month of August," recalled Ahmed Zubair, 22. "Without it we cannot protect ourselves against COVID-19. We reserve water for drinking rather than for hygiene. We reserve water for drinking rather than for hygiene. It is a danger to children and to society in general," said Zubair.  

Turkey has cut off the water supply to the area up to 13 times this year, according to the United Nations, in order to put pressure on the Kurdish administration. The whole region of Al-Hasaka spent two weeks in the sweltering heat of August without water and some neighbourhoods went more than two months without any water being delivered. The first cuts started last March, according to the official Syrian news agency SANA. The manager of the Al-Hasaka Water Company, Mahmoud al-Ulka, has said that cutting off the water supply puts the lives of more than 600,000 people who depend on the Allouk plant, considered the main source of drinking water in the region, at risk. Mahmoud al-Ulka said that the Turkish army had done everything possible to prevent the company's teams from working again to bring the plant into operation. 

Turkey launched Operation Spring Peace in October last year against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is composed of Kurds in north-west Syria. The SDS is mainly composed of members of the People's Protection Unit, which Turkey considers as a terrorist group because of its ideological connection with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has used the armed struggle of 1984 to claim the rights of the Kurds. The SDS has led the campaign of the coalition formed by the USA in Northern Syria by destroying the last resistances of the Deir ez-Zor militants in March 2019. However, Washington withdrew from the area when Turkey attacked the Kurds in October 2019, forcing it to withdraw from its positions along the border between Turkey and Syria.  

Just a few hours after the Turkish offensive, artillery shells hit the Allouk pumping station and put it out of action. Although the installation has been repaired since then with international supervision, it is still under Turkish control, this makes it difficult for the Kurdish led Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria, which currently controls the area known as the Red Area. "The Kurdish administration has tried to dig water wells as an alternative for water supply, but that is not enough," analyst and journalist Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a specialist in coverage of the Kurds, told Arab News. "The only solution is for the international community to put pressure on the Turkish government to stop cutting off water in northern Syria.  

The taps stopped having water in August and thus the suffering of the population started. The international community started to put pressure on Ankara, but with little success. James Jeffrey, the US special envoy to Syria, has installed the Turkish leadership has resumed the water supply, while Russian military engineers in the area started working on a pipeline to try to extend the supply to the inhabitants of the area.  

James Jeffrey, the US special envoy to Syria, has urged the Turkish leadership to resume the water supply, while Russian military engineers in the area set to work on a pipeline to help quench Ras Al-Ain's thirst. For years Russia has backed the position of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad. Syrian forces are engaged in a low-intensity conflict with Turkish forces in the north-western Syrian province of Idlib and in a three-way contest with the Turks and the Armed Defence Forces for control of north-western Syria. Russia wants to win over the Kurds to help promote a diplomatic solution to the civil conflict in Syria. Moscow considers that the Kurds should be included in the constitutional talks with the regime, as otherwise the new political system will have no legitimacy and it will not be possible to unify the country, one of Russia's goals and its support for Al-Asad.  

The stated aim of Operation Spring Peace in Ankara was to force Bachar al-Asad's army to withdraw from the vicinity of the Turkish border by creating an area under Turkish control that would extend some 30 km into Syrian territory. Turkey's ambitions are becoming increasingly difficult to realise, as the United States has reinforced its deployment in Syria with sentry radars, additional combat patrols and Bradley combat vehicles in its growing rivalry with Russia, the area is becoming increasingly militarised.  

"Things were already very complicated in Ras Al-Ain before the Turks occupied the city and cut off Allouk's water supply, but after that people were left without water for washing or drinking, and all in the midst of the COVID-19 health crisis," Muhammed Baqi of the Hevy Organization for Relief and Development told Arab News. "The Kurdish administration tried to drill a water well known as Al-Himme, but it did not work because the water they took out of there was not potable, it was only for washing," Baqi said. "Allouk is still the main source of water in the Al-Hasakah region," explains this activist.  

Disputes over the supply of electricity to the Allouk facility have inflamed an already tense situation. The Turkish side cut the water supply in Al-Hasakah in order to put pressure on the Kurdish administration to supply more electricity to its power station in Mabrouka to the areas controlled by the Syrian representatives of Turkey. The Turkish Ministry of National Defence insisted at the beginning of August that Allouka was under maintenance and that Al-Hasakah would continue to receive water minister.