Many individuals pooh pooh the idea that war can affect drinking water supplies, but this fact has once again been proven with the recent airstrikes on Syria, where an airstrike on a water treatment plant in Syria left 3.5million people without any water supply.
The facility supplies approximately 18million litres of drinking water from the Euphrates River on a daily basis, and according to UNICEF, this was an ‘alarming’ example of the war’s toll on local populations and shows how the rules of war, which were designed to protect innocent civilians, are being broken on a daily basis.
Aleppo and much of Syria has been decimated by air strikes, what with Syrian government forces and rebel groups, France, Russia and the United States all being involved in the fighting, it is not clear exactly who is responsible for destroying pa portion of the water treatment plant.
Hanaa Singer, UNICEF’s representative in Syria, said: “In Syria, the rules of war, including those meant to protect vital civilian infrastructure, continue to be broken on a daily basis. The air-strike which reportedly hit al-Khafseh water treatment plant in the northern city of Aleppo last Thursday is a particularly alarming example.â€
The airstrike came a mere few hours after the British parliament voted to extend its bombing campaign to Syria, but confusion reigns as to who was responsible because the Syrian Network for Human Rights blamed Syrian government warplanes while the Syrian state news agency (SANA) reported that it had been the U.S.-led coalition that had bombed the water plant. Residents and rebels, on the other hand, say warplanes believed to be Russian have stepped up raids recently.
The water supply in the area is particularly vulnerable and has at different times been interrupted by both the government-controlled west and rebel-held east, which according to the UN and Red Cross is tantamount to using the water supply as a ‘weapon of war’ against civilians.
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