The Turkish state has been stopping the Alouk water station from pumping drinking water. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) has developed a project aiming at solving the ongoing water outages affecting 1.5 million people.
The Alouk water station is a crucial source of drinking water for the people of Hasakah, Serêkanîyê (Ras al-Ayn) and Til Temir (Tell Tamer). However, the Turkish state has stopped the station from pumping drinking water since it occupied Serêkanîyê (Ras al-Ayn) and Girê Spî (Tell Abyad). The ongoing water outages affect 1.5 million people living in Hasakah, its villages and surrounding villages.
On August 3, 2023, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the Executive Council and the Administration Department of Jazira Canton developed a project into practice to solve drinking water problem suffered by the city of Hasakah by digging water wells in Senceqa Saadûn and Kandor villages of Amuda, a town of Hasakah near the Syria–Turkey border. As part of the project, 20 water wells with a depth of 500 meters will be dug and six water tank trucks will transfer drinking water to Hasakah from a pool with the size of 5,000 cubic meters.
‘The water crisis will be solved when the project is completed’
Engineer Zakira Welo is responsible for the water collection part of the project named after Senceqa Saadûn. “This project was developed with the consent of the people of Amuda and the villagers. The aim of the project is to solve the water crisis suffered by the people of Hasakah and its villages. We believe that the water crisis will be solved when the project is completed.”
‘The ongoing attacks affect the project’
Speaking about the ongoing Turkish attacks on the region, she said, “They target the infrastructure of the region and this affects the project. Human rights organizations should prevent the attacks so that we can distribute drinking water to citizens.”
‘Our well runs dry’
The water crisis affects our life, said Şikriya Hisên, a resident of Hasakah. “We are left without water in hot weather. We dug a water well with our neighbor but our well runs dry. We have to buy drinking water but it is dirty. Our children get sick due to dirty water. We demand a solution for this water crisis. The occupying Turkish state causes this crisis.”
