Al-Hasakah – Majd al-Salem
The residents of Tal Burak and its countryside, located about 40 kilometers east of al-Hasakah, suffer from the spread of potholes in the city’s dilapidated roads.
These potholes burden residents and vehicle owners of all kinds, and this suffering intensifies with the onset of winter, especially every time it rains.
Fatima al-Abdullah (40 years old) described the condition of her three children in the city, saying they suffer “twofold” when going to school, which is far from home, while the main street is filled with puddles of water and mud.
Every time her children go out, she has to clean their clothes and shoes several times, to the point that they prefer to stay at home and not attend school during the winter, according to her comments to Enab Baladi.
Car breakdowns
Bahaa al-Din al-Saleh (30 years old), a minibus owner transporting passengers between Tal Burak and al-Hasakah, stated that the road network in the area is “very” dilapidated and the asphalt layer is disappearing in parts of the roads in Tal Burak and al-Shaddadi, making them “like dirt roads.”
He added to Enab Baladi that the state of the roads causes “an endless series of breakdowns” in his vehicle, forcing him to visit repair shops at least twice a month, noting that the earnings from his work barely cover maintenance costs.
According to observations by Enab Baladi from residents of the area, the local road network, especially those connecting al-Hasakah city to the countryside and other towns like Tal Burak and al-Shaddadi, has not been maintained for about five years, even at the level of patching the roads (filling the potholes with asphalt).
Holes are widespread in the roads of the mentioned cities, mostly resulting from unfinished sewage projects left in their current state or from poorly executed backfilling from previous projects.
Delays in project completion
Regarding the delay in addressing the road issues and their deteriorating condition, one employee at the technical office in al-Hasakah told Enab Baladi (requesting anonymity for security reasons and because he is not authorized to speak to the media), that the primary reason is the delay in completing the repairs of the sewage networks in the cities.
He mentioned that despite the efforts made, asphalting cannot occur before finishing the repairs of the sewage networks, which are a priority to ensure the sustainability of the roads and prevent them from being damaged in the future.
Concerning pothole backfilling, he indicated that municipalities had filled several potholes by the end of the summer of 2024, as part of a plan to rectify the damage caused by previous excavation work.
He noted that the ongoing problem of potholes is a result of the overlap of several technical and logistical factors affecting the speed of project execution, which directly impedes the complete backfilling of potholes.
The poor condition of roads is similar in several neighborhoods and towns in al-Hasakah, and fatal accidents on the main roads connecting al-Hasakah province to larger cities are recurrent, raising fears and concerns among residents.
The evident lack of necessary road signs contributes to increased travel risks on these roads.
One of the most notable accidents occurred on January 3, 2024, when a traffic accident on the Qamishli-al-Hasakah road resulted in the loss of four lives and injuries to more than 20 others due to a collision between a bus and a truck.
For nine years, residents, private car owners, and drivers working on the road connecting the town of al-Qahtaniyah with the villages south of al-Raad in al-Hasakah, northeastern Syria, have been complaining about the deterioration of the road and its poor condition.
The road is approximately 50 kilometers long, extending from al-Qahtaniyah southward towards the Iraqi border, with dozens of villages dependent on this road to reach major cities, particularly Qamishli city.