The people who have returned to the city of Murak, the northern countryside of Hama, are suffering poor living and services, in the shadow of the services absence from the city and the damage that affected its infrastructure.

The local council at the city of Murak has launched a distress call to relief entities and organization due to the city’s deteriorating service-related situation. In a statement published on “Facebook” on Monday, August 20, the local council said that the city is enduring the total absence of services due to the huge damage that befell the infrastructure, water tanks in particular, which afflicted the whole water system in the area.

The city also suffers from problems relating to the sewage network, which led to the proliferation of diseases and epidemics among the population, in addition to the damage which affected the electricity sector that resulted from shelling and thefts.

The city’s people are complaining about the service-related situation in the city, because the local council is unable to cover the expenses of infrastructure restoration processes.

The media activist Akram al-Hamwi, from the city of Murak, told Enab Baladi that since the opposition factions took over the city, in September two years ago, the area started to suffer from poor services, pointing out that the principal problem that is facing people these days is providing water for home uses, for the people are mainly dependent on mobile water tanks, the price for each is 2500 Syrian pounds, as to fill their home tanks.

Pointing out to the humanitarian situation in the area, al-Hamwi added that the sewage wells are yet open, though the people have been repeatedly calling for closing them as they are causing the spread of insects.

The people are also storing rain water through wells, that are prepared for collecting the water and for utilizing it, according to al-Hamwi.

In an interview with Enab Baladi, the director of Murak City Local Council, Abdullsalam al-Qasem said that the need for services has increased with the people’s return to their homes, pointing out to the necessity for reactivating service facilities and establishments for the sake of the citizens who returned to their city.

The situation in the city deteriorated further due to the destruction that befell it because of the shelling, in addition to thefts that did not spare the covers of the sewage system and the utility poles, according to al-Qasem.

Al-Qasem explained that the city has eight water wells, all of which are destroyed. The local council has succeeded in reactivating two of them and providing civilians with water through mobile water tanks.

He pointed out that the council is unable to cover all this work due to the high expanses, the reason why “we called on all the entities and organizations involved in the field of services as to help the people and to direct their efforts towards the city of Murak, as well as cooperate with the local council.”

The city suffers a constant shelling on the part of Assad’s forces because it is a confrontation point, separating the northern areas held by the opposition and the areas controlled by the Syrian regime.

According to the city’s local council, the number of residents has increased to 12 thousand people, consisting of both the original population of the city and internally displaced persons, pointing out to the presence of a single school that lacks the capacity to accommodate all the students of Murak, in addition to a single mosque.