Iraq and Syria are not getting the adequate amount of water to meet their necessary demand . This situation is expected to worsen in the near future which might lead to inter-border armed conflict.
Shafkat Ahmed Chowdhury, Student, Institute of Disaster Management and Vulnerability Studies;
University of Dhaka.
Water is certainly one of the most important resources for any nation. Since the beginning of human civilization, people have been relying on water directly for their everyday functions. Water, which is often synonymously termed as ‘Life’ becomes a reason of misery upon its crisis and scarcity.
The people of Iraq and Syria have been struggling to meet the water demand. As an upstream country, Turkey is already a spot of bother for Iraq and Syria. The water crisis in the region is historical and it has been there for a long time. In the 1960s-70, Turkey started to build big dams in the Euphrates and Tigris under the Southeastern Anatolia Project(GAP) which included large dams like Atatürk Dam, Birecik Dam, Keban Dam, etc. These dams hampered the water flow in Iraq and Syria causing continuous water crisis till now.
But in the recent past, different dimensions were added to the ongoing water crisis of Iraq and Syria after the Islamic State took over a large part of both nations. IS took control of some important dams like Tabqa Dam and Mosul Dam. IS weaponized the water to control the mass population, make enemies suffer, and gain the utmost power. They were successful with the plan as well, from 2013 to 2017-18, IS had a strong position as a controller of water in Iraq and Syria. It was reported that IS used the river as a tool of coercion. They used to restrict the water flow of the dam to deprive the areas that opposed their control. Also, creating an artificial flood in strategic locations has been recorded in the regime of IS.
This particular period of IS regime has been very distressful for the people of Iraq and Syria. However, the domination didn’t last for too long, from 2017 the U.S. govt with other international and local forces made intervention to nullify the terrorist organization and gradually IS lost the capture of Iraq and Syria which ultimately made the water free from weaponization.
Unfortunately, the water crisis in Iraq and Syria was only triggered by IS, even after their absence, the water crisis is still an existing issue for both of the nations as Turkey is controlling all the water flow from the upstream. Iraq and Syria are not getting the adequate amount of water to meet their necessary demand . This situation is expected to worsen in the near future which might lead to inter-border armed conflict. It is very crucial to address the problem and avoid all sorts of violence and harm to any of the nations. Strong diplomacy and intervention from the United Nations and other international bodies are required to solve this problem. Things need to be sorted out before the situation gets worse.
***The opinions shared in this article are the author’s own and do not represent this platform’s stance.
