BEIRUT —
Human Rights Watch (HRW) Monday accused the government in Damascus and Turkey
of exacerbating Syria’s deadly cholera outbreak by restricting aid and water
flow to the country’s Kurdish-held northeast.
اضافة اعلان
Syria has
recorded 81 deaths and more than 24,000 suspected cases of the extremely
virulent disease since September, according to the World Health Organization,
in the country’s first outbreak for more than a decade.
Ankara has
“failed to ensure” adequate water flow down the Euphrates river and supply from
the strategic Turkish-controlled Alouk water station, HRW said.
The rights group
also slammed the government of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad for its
“discriminatory diversion of aid and essential services” away from Kurdish-held
areas in the northeast.
Residents of
this area are facing waning river flow from the Euphrates, where water testing
in September proved the presence of bacteria responsible for cholera, a Kurdish
health official told reporters at the time.
Syrian Kurdish
authorities have also accused neighbor and archfoe Turkey of weaponizing water
by tightening the tap upstream — claims Ankara has denied.
“Turkey can and
should immediately stop aggravating Syria’s water crisis,” said Adam Coogle,
deputy
Middle East director at HRW.
“This
devastating cholera outbreak will not be the last waterborne disease to impact
Syrians if the country’s severe water problems are not immediately addressed.”
Cholera is
generally contracted from contaminated food or water and spreads in residential
areas that lack proper sewerage networks or mains drinking water.
“Longstanding
restrictions on aid reaching Kurdish-held areas ... have left healthcare
facilities and humanitarian groups operating in northeast Syria scrambling to
respond to a disease that can spread rapidly,” HRW said, elaborating on the
Syrian government’s alleged culpability.
Inside Syria,
the Euphrates flows mostly along territory controlled by semi-autonomous
Kurdish authorities, whose US-backed fighters dislodged Daesh from the Islamist
extremist’s last scrap of Syrian territory in 2019.
Turkey regards
these Kurdish fighters as terrorists.
“All parties to
the conflict need to ensure the right to clean water and health for everyone in
Syria,” HRW said.
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