BEIRUT — International relief groups warned Monday that millions of people in Syria and Iraq are at risk of losing access to water, energy, and food owing to increasing temperatures, record low water levels due to a lack of rainfall, and dryness.
More than 12 million people are affected in both nations, with 5 million Syrians directly reliant on the Euphrates River. The lack of water from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, as well as drought, threaten at least 7 million people in Iraq.
The unfolding water crisis, according to Carsten Hansen, regional director of the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the aid organizations behind the warning, “will soon become an unprecedented catastrophe pushing more into displacement” for hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still displaced and many more fleeing for their lives in Syria.
They cautioned that water-borne illnesses have increased in numerous Syrian provinces, including Hassakah, Aleppo, and Raqqa in the north and Deir el-Zour in the east. Displacement settlements, which house tens of thousands of people displaced by Syria’s 10-year conflict, are among the places.
“There is no time to waste,” said Gerry Garvey of the Danish Refugee Council, who added that the water crisis is likely to exacerbate violence in a region that is already unstable.
Severe fuel shortages in Lebanon have also put a stop to the functioning of thousands of private generators that have long been relied on for energy in the country plagued by corruption.
The waterways of Lebanon are likewise highly polluted. Activists have long worried about the Litani River, the country’s longest and a significant source of water, agriculture, and hydroelectricity, becoming polluted by sewage and garbage.