(Al Kasrah) Amidst crying children in a crowded hospital in eastern Syria, Ahmad al-Mohammad writhes in pain. He and his wife have cholera, a disease that has resurfaced in the country.
Posted at 7:29 p.m.
For the past six days, the 45-year-old Syrian has seen other patients pass by at Al-Kasrah hospital in Deir Ezzor province, where the water from the polluted Euphrates river is used by residents for drinking and irrigating the plantations.
“We suffered from diarrhoea, vomiting and pain […] because we drink water directly from the Euphrates”, says Ahmad al-Mohammad who can hardly speak. “This water is polluted, but we have no other choice. »
Nearby, a man cradles his child on a drip.
For the first time since 2009, cholera, an acute diarrheal infection, reappeared in early September in Syria where around two-thirds of water treatment plants, half of pumping stations and a third of water towers were damaged by eleven years of war, according to the UN.
The Syrian government has announced 23 deaths and more than 250 infections in six provinces under its control in the fragmented country, most of the cases in Aleppo (north).
In the regions in the hands of the Kurdish autonomous administration which controls much of the Northeast, sixteen deaths and 78 cases, including 43 in western Deir Ezzor, have been recorded, according to Juan Mustafa, a Kurdish official of the Health.
The tests showed the presence of the bacteria responsible for cholera in the Euphrates, according to him.
” Urgently ”
Due to drought, pollution and the discharge of sewage, the flow of the Euphrates, which in the past irrigated some of the most fertile regions of Syria, has dropped significantly and several parts have dried up.
The Syrian Kurds also accuse neighboring Turkey, through which the Euphrates passes, of retaining more water than necessary in its dams, reducing the flow of the river on the Syrian side.
In Syria, more than five million people depend on the Euphrates for drinking water according to the UN.
But drinking water has become a very rare commodity. And even purchased water is often contaminated.
Al-Kasrah hospital admits dozens of suspected cases every day, according to its director Tarek Alaeddine.
“All the patients drank water delivered by trucks that extracted it directly from the Euphrates, without filtering or sterilization,” says Mr. Alaeddine. “We call on international organizations to act urgently. »
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), the disease spread to western Deir Ezzor province after local authorities stopped distributing chlorine to water pumping stations.
“No other choice”
The Kurdish administration said it resumed distribution of chlorine after the outbreak reappeared and provided aid to medical institutions in the region to prevent its spread.
But a solution may be difficult.
Farmer Ahmad Souleiman Al-Rashid, 55, says he irrigated his fields with water from the Euphrates, contaminating the crops.
“There are no water filtering stations. We drink unsterilized and unchlorinated water, and we rely on God to protect us,” he says. “What else can we do? The authorities are to blame. »
At the same time, a rusty truck is pumping murky water from the Euphrates.
“We know the water is polluted, but we drink it anyway. We have no other choice,” adds the farmer.
Not far away, a young boy sprinkles his face with fresh water from the river. Beside him, Sobha Hamid Ali, 60, washes spinach leaves with river water.
“We are forced to eat contaminated vegetables,” she laments. “We have to live after all. »