Life at 50°C: Syria's water wars

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

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Summary

The autonomous north-east region of Syria, once regarded as one of the most fertile areas in the country, is today struggling to find enough water to survive. More than a million people in Hasakah have been left with almost no drinking water, and what little water they have has to be brought in by tanker. BBC Eye goes to Hasakah to investigate what lies behind this crisis. Namak Khoshnaw hears how, following Turkey’s incursion into the region in 2019, a critical water station is barely functioning, and Turkey has bombed the power station that supplies it along with other infrastructure. Namak talks to local people about their daily struggle to survive and to the engineers and local officials desperately racing against time to find new sources of drinking water.

Transcript

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0:00.0	With large blue barrels in their hands,
0:03.0	with large blue barrels in their hands,
0:10.0	a group of women crowd around a water tanker.
0:14.0	It's the first delivery of water to their neighborhood for days,
0:18.0	and it's their only source of water.
0:20.0	They are arguing for days, and it's their only source of water.
0:27.6	They are arguing. They're worried there won't be enough to go around.
0:33.6	We don't have any water in this area at all. We come here and only four or five households get watered. For the rest, there is no water left.
0:44.0	There is tension, even anger. One woman shouts that people are ready to kill their neighbor over water.
0:59.4	They are not the only ones in this part of northeast Syria who struggle to access water.
1:05.2	The whole region is in the grip of a severe water crisis, and I am here to find out why.
1:13.0	I am Namak Hoshnow,
1:14.7	and this is Syria's water wars.
1:17.5	It's a life at 50 degrees investigation
1:19.9	for the documentary from the BBC World Service.
1:36.2	The woman who organized today's water delivery is Fatima Zamin, who works for the local council.
1:41.9	She is a short woman, dressed in a smart chair, trousers and a navy blue head's scarf.
1:45.0	She listens as the woman bend their frustrations, but the look on her face says that there is only so much she can do.
1:49.0	As you can see here, there's a shortage of water.
1:54.0	We see that people are suffering and we understand their concerns,
1:58.0	but the water supply is scarce and we don't have the infrastructure
2:01.3	needed to deliver it to the people.
	...

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