As many as 5.5 million residents of the Syrian capital Damascus face a pandemic of waterborne disease due to severe shortages of clean water, according to the United Nations and aid groups.
The Ain al-Fijah water processing facility, which provides water for 70 per cent of the city’s population via the Barada River, has suffered heavy damage “because of fighting, or because of sabotage, or because of both,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday.
An activist-run media collective in the Barada Valley said government and Russian aircraft had bombed the facility, puncturing its fuel depots and contaminating the water stream.
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Images showed the roof of the facility collapsed into its main water basin. An activist with the group, Abu Mohammed al-Bardawi, said it would take at least two months to get the facilities working again.
The government denied attacking the water processing facility, saying it would not set out to harm its own population. Damascus officials said they were forced to shut off the water after opposition forces poured gasoline into the river.
The blame game does little to help the civilians of Damascus.
Some are now flushing their toilets with bottled water. Others are dining on disposable tableware as an alternative to doing the dishes.
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“I have stopped cleaning the house, washing dishes or clothes. We no longer take showers,” said Mona Maqssoud, a 50-year-old resident of Damascus. She said residents have relied on water tankers that come by occasionally and give 20 liters (5 gallons) of water to each house, but that hasn’t been enough.
“We begged the drivers (to return) to our neighborhood, but they refused.”
The water shortage and resultant price-gouging are forcing many people to turn to substandard water sources that could expose them to serious waterborne diseases, according to the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, known by its French acronym UOSSM.
“There is a significant risk of a waterborne disease pandemic; microbial parasites, typhoid, hepatitis and cholera. The current medical infrastructure is not equipped to handle a pandemic of this scale,” the UOSSM warned in a press release.
The battle for resources has always been an undercurrent to the war. The government, in particular, has advertised its efforts to keep electricity and water flowing to areas under its control, while it blocks the UN and other relief agencies from supplying opposition zones.
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Dujarric said that a “web of obstacles” are preventing UN officials from accessing water processing facilities and restoring the water supply.
“Not only do we need approval from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Damascus, we need it from the Governor’s office, from the Security Committee of the region, from the security forces involved, and from the armed groups inside. All of them have to allow us access, and it only takes one of them to deny us access,” he said.
“To sabotage and deny water is of course a war crime, because it is civilians who drink it and civilians who will be affected by waterborne diseases.”
Dujarric added the UN has rehabilitated and equipped 120 wells in and around Damascus that cover about one-third of the city’s daily water needs.
“There are now emergency efforts to ensure that schools, and hospitals, and bakeries, and other essential functions get water.”
— With files from the Associated Press
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