SYRIA: Alouk water station stops working as a result of encroachments on power lines

NORTH AND EAST SYRIA — Salwa Saleh, Co-Chair of the General Directorate of Drinking Water in Hasakah Canton, indicated that the Alouk Water Station in the Rish Ayno (Ras al-Ayn) countryside has stopped working as a result of damage to the power lines which provide it energy.

Factions of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) periodically damage the power lines feeding Alouk with shelling. They also siphon off power from the lines and blame the Democratic Autonomous Administration (DAA) of North and East Syria for not providing enough power to run the station.

Saleh stated that, “encroachments on the power line connecting the Al-Darbasiyah substation and the Alouk substation led to its suspension. The station also stopped working temporarily last Thursday due to a lack of power supply. It was restarted the next day.”

Saleh confirmed that this violates the agreement concluded between the DAA and Turkey made with Russian mediation, which “requires the operation of the plant at its full production capacity, and an increase in the number of wells and pumps, respectively.”

Meanwhile, the station’s lack of water is sufficient to operate only 14 wells out of 30, and only two horizontal pumps out of eight, she said.

Saleh added that about one million people were at risk as a result of severe interruptions in the work of the vital Alouk water station.

Since Turkey and its SNA proxies took control of the station in mid-October 2019, operations at the station have been suspended 25 times. Recently it was stopped for more than 80 days, from late June until mid-September.