Humanitarian and relief organizations have stopped supporting water distribution to the displaced people camps in the northern countryside of Aleppo, where the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (the political umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces) and the Syrian regime have control, months after the distribution of material relief baskets to the residents of the same camps ceased.
Hawar news agency, which is close to the Autonomous Administration, stated that the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has repeatedly cut off water to the villages of Tel Rifaat during 2020 and 2021, and this was renewed on February 15 of this year, when water was cut off to the displaced people’s camps north of Aleppo.
Lîlav Sheikho, a member of the Barkhadan camp municipality, conveyed to the agency that the UNICEF water cuts to the camps will cause many crises and disasters, one of which is the spread of diseases, especially with the approach of summer when there is greater need for water.
She added that the camp’s municipality might be able to provide water for the people at the moment, but would face greater difficulties during the summer season.
Many camps are spread north of the city of Aleppo, inhabited by displaced people from Afrin city since Turkey and the factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA) took control of the city and its surrounding villages and towns in 2018, known as Tel Rifaat camps, or Shahba camps.
Funding problem
UNICEF stated to Enab Baladi via an email correspondence that water trucking, which it provided to the camps, stopped in February due to funding-related problems.
The organization added that funding restrictions were the reason behind the termination of the transportation operations and came after discussing this change with the local authorities and sharing the information with water sector partners, including Aleppo Water Corporation.
The organization indicated that the residents of the camps in northern Aleppo countryside, namely in the Fafin, Afrin, Shahba, Asir, and al-Awda camps, can obtain water from local water wells and water trucking, supported by the local authorities in the area.
Meanwhile, the organization continues to work with Aleppo Water Corporation to implement a sustainable solution for the rehabilitation of the main pipeline and provide water to the region, noting that it continues to work with partners to ensure that children and families have access to potable water.
Cutting off in stages
Ibrahim Sheikho, an activist in the relief field living in the Afrin camp in the village of Tel Sha’ir, north of Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in Aleppo, told Enab Baladi that organizations stopped providing water to all camps spread north of Aleppo since mid-February, without clear reasons.
He added that water used to reach the camps through tankers imported by UNICEF from Aleppo city where the Syrian regime has control, since the beginning of the formation of these camps after the displacement of their residents from Afrin.
Sheikho noted that the water crisis is not the first of its kind, as the organization reduced the water allowances for the camps in 2021, when UNICEF provided the camps with 2,400 cubic meters of water daily, but then it reduced this amount to 1,400 cubic meters.
In August 2023, the quantity was further reduced to 1,000 cubic meters, coinciding with a complete water cut in the Tel Rifaat countryside at that time.
For more than a week, water has been completely cut off to the camps without clear reasons, while workers in the organization in the area say that the repeated reduction in the amount of water is due to the lack of support available for this matter.
Hawar news agency mentioned that since the displacement of the residents of Afrin, UNICEF started distributing drinking water in all districts and villages and camps of the displaced in Tel Rifaat, and it was responsible for filling the plastic water tanks in the villages and camps through water tankers.
Over time, the organization reduced the quantities of water distributed in the districts of Tel Rifaat, Sherawa, Ehras, and others, and in 2021 stopped distributing water throughout the region, also reducing the water percentage for the camps to 650,000 liters.
It allocated 300,000 liters for the Sardam camp, 280,000 liters for the Barkhadan camp, and 45,000 liters for the Afrin, Shahba, and al-Awda camps during the winter season, while water quantities increased during the summer to reach 950,000 liters, according to Hawar.
Displaced children from the city of Afrin in a camp in the city of Tel Rifaat within the areas controlled by the Autonomous Administration and the Syrian regime – February 24, 2024 (Enab Baladi)
Water and relief are cut off
On the day following the water cut-off from the camps, the residents began resorting to artesian wells spread throughout the region for water provision, according to what Ibrahim Sheikho told Enab Baladi, despite their prior knowledge that the water is not suitable for drinking and needs sterilization.
Sheikho added that residents of the camps are dealing with the current crisis as a temporary situation and are working to search for alternatives through the wells in the area, noting that the organization did not inform the residents that the water was cut off, nor how long this cut might last.
Hilal (a pseudonymous name for security reasons), a young man living in one of the Tel Rifaat camps north of Aleppo city, told Enab Baladi that he has been relying on the artesian wells in the region for water, even before the UNICEF water supply to the camp was cut off, indicating that the organization’s workers attribute the cut-off to a lack of available support.
He added that the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) was distributing aid in kind to the inhabitants of the camps, but these aids have been cut off for six months, without explaining the reasons.
Hilal pointed out that in-kind aid was distributed to the camp’s inhabitants only once during a period of up to two months, but for the past six months, no aid has been distributed in the region.
Tents in Afrin camp north of Aleppo city within the areas controlled by the Autonomous Administration and the Syrian regime – February 24, 2024 (Enab Baladi)
The regime’s role
For years, the residents of Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhoods in Aleppo and other areas in the northern countryside have been living in difficult living conditions as a result of a siege imposed by the Syrian regime through closing the roads leading to them, where the entry of fuels and raw materials to the area managed by the Autonomous Administration is prevented.
One of the latest features of the siege appeared when the Autonomous Administration closed the schools it manages in the Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods and other areas, due to what it called the “governmental siege” imposed on the area.
On November 26, Hawar news agency conveyed a decision from the Municipal Affairs Authority in the Afrin and Shahba regions which includes Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods, and the city of Tel Rifaat and its surroundings, in November 2023, stating: “Due to the conditions that the Afrin and Shahba region is undergoing and the lack of fuel and transport fuel, it has been decided to suspend all schools and the Martyr Viyan Amara Institute in the region until further notice.”
Also, at the beginning of April 2022, elements of the Fourth Division stationed around the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in Aleppo, prevented the entry of vehicles loaded with flour to the neighborhood’s bakeries, coinciding with a living crisis suffered by the area.
Tel Rifaat, Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyeh neighborhoods, are the only geographical area under the control of the SDF, north of Aleppo, after several military campaigns launched by Turkey towards the region, which resulted in limiting its influence to small neighborhoods of Aleppo city, and a number of villages in the northern countryside of Aleppo, in addition to the city of Tel Rifaat.