Across the world, states are coming under pressure for their response to the coronavirus crisis. Some fail to adequately protect their citizens, some use Covid-19 as an excuse for authoritarian power-grabs, and some do both simultaneously. Here in North and East Syria, the autonomous region more commonly known as Rojava, 4m Syrians;– Kurds, Arabs, Christians
Sara Montinaro, project manager at Kurdish Red Crescent, explains the water situation in Heseke after the latest cut-off of Allouk water station which is under Turkish occupation. She was interviewed on 11 July 2020.
Five years ago, four women founded an agricultural cooperative in Tirbespiyê. Today, forty women work there and the cooperative covers a large part of the demand for vegetables in the Northern Syrian region.
After an explosion of media attention following the Turkish invasion, coverage ebbed away as Turkish proxy forces advanced and settled in for an indefinite occupation. Millions of people around the world were left wondering what had become of the people and political project of north-east Syria. That’s why the Rojava Information Center published ‘Beyond the Frontlines’, the most in-depth explanation to date – with diagrams – of the political system here in North and East Syria.
Pictures and video clips of the Euphrates when entering Syrian territory show shocking scenes of the course of the largest river in the country, two months after Turkey reduced the rate of water flowing to the Syrian side.
“Natural medicine is more than just herbs. We want to defend the health of society,” says the healing and health centre in women’s village Jinwar in northern Syria.
The agricultural project that started last year in al-Sheikh Maksoud neighborhood achieved positive results in achieving an economic return for the families that adopted it, in a way that helped them expand it to include livestock breeding and launch future plans.
Before the Turkish occupation, Efrîn was a center of the ‘women’s revolution’ that North and East Syria has become famous for. Women’s institutions based on direct democracy and aimed at addressing gender inequality and other social challenges were active, and laws and policies mandating political equality had been put into practice. Efrîn Canton saw minimal
The bakery produces 4 tons of bread daily and tries to meet the needs of the people with overtime in case of higher demand.
The women of Deir ez-Zor have started to take on a leading role in all areas after the region was liberated and are now strengthening their economies through the cooperatives they build.
Qamishlo residents expressed their satisfaction with the measures of the Autonomous Administration with regard to the living reality, which is considered a temporary remedy to contain the economic crisis in the regions of northeast of Syria. The economist Aladdin Farhan described these measures as “positive”, indicating that these steps will be a success by studying them more deeply.
Lack of international recognition as a state has disastrous consequences on an area already suffering from war and displacement.
