Millions of people in Syria and Iraq are at risk of losing access to water, electricity, and food amid rising temperatures, record low water levels due to lack of rainfall, and drought, international aid groups warned Monday.
The climate crisis has hit the region with rising temperatures, record low levels of rainfall, and drought, depriving people of drinking water and water for agricultural use, reports Reliefweb Monday morning.
This crisis has created a vicious, unending cycle, disrupting electricity as dams run out of water, which in turn impacts the operations of essential infrastructure including health facilities, and robbing the people of water, an essential ingredient of life.
CBC Canada is reporting that over 12 million people in both countries are affected, including five million in Syria who are directly dependent on the Euphrates River. In Iraq, the loss of access to water from the Euphrates and Tigris River, and drought, threaten at least seven million people.
Currently, over 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) of agricultural land is a total drought risk. Two dams in northern Syria, serving 3 million people with electricity, are facing imminent closure.
Communities in Hasakah, Aleppo, Raqqa, and Deir Ez Zour, including displaced people in camps, have witnessed a rise in outbreaks of water-borne diseases such as diarrhea, since the reduction in water.
Carsten Hansen, regional director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the aid groups behind the warning, said that for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still displaced and many more still fleeing for their lives in Syria, the unfolding water crisis “will soon become an unprecedented catastrophe pushing more into displacement.”
According to Haaretz.com, other aid groups include Mercy Corps, the Danish Refugee Council, CARE international, ACTED, and Action Against Hunger.
Severe water shortages have also hit Lebanon, which is mired in the worst economic and financial crisis in its modern history, where more than 4 million people — mainly vulnerable children and families — face critical water shortages in the coming days, the U.N.’s children agency warned last week.
In Lebanon, severe fuel shortages have also halted the work of thousands of private generators long relied on for electricity in the corruption-plagued country.
Aid agencies have been warning about Lebanon’s extremely polluted rivers, filled with sewage and other garbage. The country’s Litani River, the longest in Lebanon, is a major source of water for human consumption, irrigation, and hydroelectricity, but its pollution levels are very high.
