chlorine

ALEPPO, SYRIA: We have received the following report, which attests to knowledge of ISIL using chlorine as a chemical weapon and controlling water supply from the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates.

ALEPPO: We have water today, after 10-14 days without water service from the government. We spent all the day filling up all empty containers and bottles, the bathtub and water tanks and cisterns at home and on the roof. We filled up some of them few days ago, via the water seller. Aleppo 's water is from the Euphrates. Turkey used to prevent us from accessing water in the 1990's. ISIL is controlling the dam today and most of the Euphrates. They occupied the chlorine factory as well, which used to sterilize the water. Now ISIL is using it in chemical attacks, and the UN is blaming the Syrian army and government, either for claiming using it against innocent people, or for failing in protecting it from falling in the wrong hands of ISIS! Thanks to them, Aleppo is thirsty.

Forty year old neighbors have become like enemies. When you have limited time to have limited resources, people in the west turn nuts and do crazy stuff, run over each other, swear and hit each other while fighting over a digital camera or any other item. Same over here, fighting over little water.

Water is coming little by little, with some dust and clay at the beginning. It doesn't reach the higher stories of houses in the easy way of the old days. We need like a private pump to each house to do the job. But that needs power, and power/hydro/electricity comes around 4 hours a day.

People are depending on alternative solutions, like a small size generator that works on fuel. But fuel has become a problem of its own during the last couple of years, since there was no fuel in the city!

The other solution is to register with a bigger generator size for the neighborhood, with one's request of Amperes. We are registered for 6 Amperes, enough for the fridges, tv, fans, and lights. A dentist friend needs 16 Amperes for his clinic. That service gives us another 10-11 hours of power a day, and costs around $20 a week. We still have to suffer 9 hours without power.

So, back to the water conflicts between neighbors, each claiming that the others took more. I don't blame my mother or neighbors who are ready to start a conflict because of that, but I feel so bad at how sanctions, battles and agreements on the global level, have reached us as individuals and cause troubles between friends, families, and neighbors, who only a few years ago were laughing and inviting each other to share plenty of food...and water!