Millions of people living in and around the Syrian city of Aleppo were without a source of clean water for 48 days before a key facility came back online last week, UNICEF announced Sunday.
The al-Khafseh treatment plant resumed taking and treating water from the Euphrates River last Thursday, the United Nations children’s organization said in a news release, marking the first time the plant had done so since it was “deliberately” closed on January 16.
UNICEF did not assign blame for the roughly month-and-a-half shutdown, which left about 2 million people in or near Aleppo without their only means of accessing clean drinking water.
Rather, the organization noted the incident was the latest in a line of troubling attacks on water supplies across Syria, saying “all sides” involved in the nearly five-year conflict have used water as “a weapon of war” to deprive civilians of the clean water that is necessary for everyday life.
UNICEF said about 5 million people in Syria faced water shortages that could have killed them last year, as various combatants either shut off water, targeted facilities with airstrikes or ground attacks or prevented civilians from doing the work required to repair and operate the systems.
The organization said civilians sometimes turned to untreated water sources, which left them prone to contracting waterborne illnesses. That was the case in Aleppo, where people were forced to rely on groundwater. About half of them were children, who were particularly at risk.
However, this wasn’t the first time that Aleppo’s water supply — or the plant — was offline.
According to UNICEF, about 2 million people were temporarily without water after an airstrike hit the plant last November. That came months after a summer that saw “opposition groups” turn off the water more than 40 times, affecting 1.5 million people. One outage lasted two weeks.
Damascus, Dar’a and Salamiyah have also seen disruptions in their water service, UNICEF said.
In a statement, UNICEF Representative in Syria Hanaa Singer said the al-Khafseh development was “lifesaving” and called for more to be done to ensure Syrians can always access safe water.
“Parties to the conflict must stop attacking or deliberately interrupting water supply, which is indispensable for the survival of the population. They should protect the treatment, distribution systems, pipelines and personnel who repair water installations,” Singer said. “Syria’s children and their families have a right to safe drinking water and clean water for hygiene and health.”
United Nations agencies say more than 250,000 people have been killed since the Syrian conflict began in 2011. Another 12 million are displaced, 4.8 million of whom are refugees.
