The Syrian Observatory For Human Rights

Struggling with dire living situation in northern Deir Ezzor | Nearly 23,000 people expelled from their homes by Iranian-backed militias

Deir Ezzor province: Thousands of families, who have been displaced from villages and towns of west Deir Ezzor countryside to Ma’aizilah village in the northern countryside of Deir Ezzor, are struggling with acute shortage of basic essentials with no humanitarian organizations caring less about these families. These families started to moved to Ma’aizilah village in 2017, after being expelled from their areas by Iranian-backed militias, non-Syrian militias in particular.

 

According to SOHR sources, the village, which is located near north Deir Ezzor desert, is inhabited by nearly 23,000 displaced people from the following seven villages: Talibiyah, Khesham, Mazlum, Marrat, Hatla, Al-Salihiyyah and Al-Huseiniyah, and they live in clay houses.

 

There are over 5,000 students in Ma’aizilah village, while the number of teachers there does not meet the requires of the village’s schools which are far from residential blocks. Students are forced to walk for nearly four kilometres to reach the “clay” schools. Moreover, the extreme poverty of most of these families has deprived many children from education, as these children are forced to work, so that their families could secure the minimum level of basic livelihood.

 

The residents of the villages, which is nearly 20 kilometres away from Euphrates river, suffer from lack of drinking water, as there is only one water purification station in the whole village, near Al-Madinah Al-Sina’iyah roundabout, and it is linked to Al-Huseiniyah station which is dominated by Iranian-backed militias. Accordingly, the residents turn to buy drinking water from water trucks, with the price of water barrels exceeding 1,000 SYL each. It is worth noting that the water transported in these trucks is polluted and led to prevalence of skin infections.

 

The village’s inhabitants have called for increasing the number of teachers, as there are only 110 teachers in Ma’aizilah, and for establishing a new station for purifying water. Meanwhile, the displaced people in that area are looking forward to allocating support by organizations operating in this region to the agriculture sector and pulling water from the river and artesian wells for farming.