Posted on 23 February 2024
Months of Turkish airstrikes in northeast Syria have resulted in widespread power outages and fuel shortages, affecting millions of residents. The airstrikes targeted key infrastructure, including power plants and oil facilities, exacerbating an already precarious humanitarian situation in the region. As a result, hospitals, schools, and essential services are struggling to operate, further compounding the challenges faced by communities already grappling with conflict and displacement.
The NES NGO forum reported on 29 January that 1 million people in cities and villages were without electricity, while over 2 million had limited access to safe water due to Turkish airstrikes in northeast Syria. The damage caused to medical facilities in December disrupted oxygen supplies to over a dozen hospitals and strikes on 28 health facilities have hampered their services, increasing the risk of water-borne diseases. The forum warned that the extent of the damage exceeds the humanitarian community's ability to sustain emergency life-saving services. Turkey has conducted military operations and airstrikes in northern Syria for years, targeting the Syrian Kurdish armed group, the People's Protection Units (YPG), which it views as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey.
Photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons