The European Ecology Movement for Kurdistan (Tev-Eko) [newly founded, in solidarity with the ecology movements in Kurdistan] has published a written statement about the ongoing attacks of the Turkish state and Turkish-backed factions on the Tishreen Dam.
At around 15:20 on December 19th, two Kurdish journalists, Nazim Dashtan and Cihan Bilgin, were killed by a Turkish drone strike on the road between the Tishreen dam and the town of Sarrin, in the southern Kobane countryside.
Large amounts of the flowing water of the Euphrates River had been remarkably reduced due to continuous blocking the flowing water by Turkish occupation since 5 consecutive months, while the director of the Rojava Dam (Tishreen), Engineer Hammoud al-Hamadin, saying” immeasurable suffering would be brought to the area, in which the river will considerably reduce in autumn season.”
Hammoud Hamadin, an administrative official in the Tishreen Dam said on Saturday that Turkey’s reduction of the Euphrates River will lead the Tishreen Dam and drinking water pumping stations to stop working.
In light of the conditions that Syria is currently facing, water has been cut off from North-east Syria and Iraq, and a policy is being pursued to starve and dehydrate millions of innocent civilians. This is not only happening on top of the current political conflicts in the region and its associated inhospitable living conditions but amidst the corona pandemic – all of which is taking place in front of the international community.
The Energy and Communications Office in the Jazira region in northeastern Syria said, on Sunday, that the amount of water import from the Turkish side through the Euphrates reached 100 m3/s on Sunday.
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.
The liberation of the dam, which had been under ISIS control since 2014, means that now the city of Kobane can have fresh water as well as regain the source of its electricity.
