SOHR: Water supply to 500,000 people in Syria’s Hasakah resumes
"Water has begun pumping again out of Alouk station in Turkish-occupied territory after a gap of a few days."
The water supply from the Alouk station in northeast Syria to Hasakah resumed after the electricity was restored to the station after a four-day suspension, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Tuesday.
Citing sources, SOHR reported that “Alouk station started operating hours after receiving the electric current, and started pumping water to the region, while the arrival of water to al-Hasakah took several hours.”
“Water has begun pumping again out of Alouk station in Turkish-occupied territory after a gap of a few days,” Clara Moore, a Syria-based researcher at the Rojava Information Center (RIC), told Kurdistan 24. “Though the details, in this case, aren’t clear this cut is a part of a pattern.”
“Many commentators have observed that Turkey consistently uses water as a weapon of war, withholding it to put pressure on the AANES (Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria),” she said. “But when water is cut, civilians are the ones who suffer.”
“We have spoken to families on the ground in NES (Northeast Syria) who have to choose between buying water and food when these cuts to Alouk happen – relying on water that is trucked into the outlying areas,” she added.
The Alouk water station is located near the Kurdish-Arab border town of Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye). It is controlled by Turkish-backed militia groups, which captured it in October 2019 during the Turkish military’s Operation Peace Spring against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
These groups stand accused of regularly cutting the water supply from Alouk. However, Turkey blames the Kurdish-led administration in northeast Syria, insisting that it’s severing the supply of electricity to Alouk and causing the disruptions to the supply of water from the station.
SOURCE: Kurdistan24