A deadly cholera outbreak compounds the misery of war-weary Syrians

Syria’s cholera outbreak has affected the country’s poorest people. (AFP)
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Updated 03 November 2022
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A deadly cholera outbreak compounds the misery of war-weary Syrians

  • WHO believes the current outbreak was caused by the public consumption of polluted water from the Euphrates
  • Syria’s health infrastructure has crumbled as a result of aid embargoes, sanctions and war damage

DUBAI/QAMISHLI, Syria: After more than 11 years of war, destruction, displacement and hunger, Syrians now face a new horror: Cholera. The disease, caused by contaminated food and water, has spread across several parts of the country in recent months and has already claimed lives.

Cholera, which has been largely eliminated in the developed world, causes diarrhea and vomiting, leading to rapid dehydration, which can kill within hours without prompt treatment. The number of cases in Syria has been steadily on the rise since the summer.

The World Health Organization recorded 24,614 infections and 81 deaths between August to the end of October, with Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Aleppo and Hasakah witnessing the highest concentrations, while camps for the internally displaced have reported 65 cases.




A child suffering from cholera receives treatment at the Al-Kasrah hospital in Syria's eastern province of Deir Ezzor. (AFP)

Parts of Syria, especially the far-flung governorates, have been facing a water crisis since most water and sewerage infrastructure was destroyed as a result of the civil war that erupted in 2011.

WHO believes the current outbreak was likely caused by the consumption of polluted water from the Euphrates River. Drought, the overpumping of groundwater, and new dams built upstream in Turkey have reduced the once mighty river to a trickle.

Falling water levels have created swamps and stagnant pools along the riverbanks, where raw sewage and other contaminants have collected and festered — the ideal conditions for water- and mosquito-borne diseases to develop.

Jwan Mustafa, co-chair of the Health Board of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), said the first case of cholera was recorded in the region in September, spreading from Deir Ezzor to Raqqa and later to Hasakah further to the north.

“Our recent statistics based on rapid testing confirm 15,000 cases and 30 deaths,” Mustafa told Arab News. “The pollution in the Euphrates River has been the main cause of plenty of prior viruses and diseases. And now cholera.

“People in the area rely on the river to drink, water their plants and for agriculture. The area by the river is considered the breadbasket of northeast Syria. When Hasakah faces a drought, it relies on the Euphrates’ water, which spells disaster for the governorate.

“We’ve started taking measures to attempt to contain the spread of the disease. Groups have been tasked with adding chlorine to water tanks in attempt to purify them.”




Syrians in Deir Ezzor are forced to use contaminated sections of the Euphrates River for drinking water and irrigation. (AFP)

Authorities are encouraging the public in cholera hotspots to first boil their water before drinking, cooking or watering their crops, to treat water tanks, pipes and other vessels with chlorine, and to regularly wash their hands and sanitize surfaces. 

However, given Syria’s crumbling infrastructure, the flight of skilled workers abroad and shortages of basic chemicals and equipment, even these simple preventative measures are difficult to implement. 

“The deterioration of the infrastructure has greatly impacted the health sector,” said Mustafa. “We struggle to contain diseases because we lack the resources and expertise. A simple virus can very easily become an epidemic in the region. We are short on laboratories and medications.”

Syria’s health infrastructure has suffered under a devastating mix of aid embargoes, sanctions and war damage. Throughout the civil war, the regime of Bashar Assad has systematically destroyed hospitals in rebel-held areas in defiance of international humanitarian law.

FASTFACTS

• Some 29 countries have reported cholera outbreaks since January of this year.

• Afghanistan, Pakistan and Haiti are among those affected besides Syria and Lebanon.

• UNICEF urgently needs $40.5 million to expand its emergency cholera response in Syria and Lebanon alone.

• The money will support health, water, hygiene and sanitation, risk communication and community engagement.

Meanwhile, deliveries of foreign aid to areas beyond the regime’s control have been deliberately blocked or diverted.

Since June 2021, when regime ally Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution allowing eastern Syria to continue receiving cross-border support via Iraq, all UN aid to the region must first pass through Damascus.

This has resulted in severe shortages of medical supplies, poor coordination between health authorities, and limited testing capacity in eastern Syria.

For the people of Raqqa, the outbreak of cholera is only the latest in a litany of crises they are forced to face alone.




A woman suffering from cholera receives treatment at the Al-Kasrah hospital in Syria's eastern province of Deir Ezzor. (AFP)

“The Syrian regime is not helping. People are already feeling haggard and depressed from the daily struggles brought on by the war,” Ahmad, a community activist in Raqqa who declined to give his full name, told Arab News.

“We know we are in trouble, but we also know help will not come from the Syrian regime. We know aid will not come locally or internationally. People do not care anymore. The cholera doesn’t faze us. We’ve been dying from war, chemical weapons and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We often muse how our lives have become Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s book: ‘Love in the time of cholera,’” he added.




“Cholera doesn’t know borders and lines of control, and spreads along population movements,” said Bertrand Bainvel, UNICEF deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. (Supplied)

In response to the cholera outbreak, Doctors Without Borders, in cooperation with local health officials in Raqqa, has established a local treatment center and two outpatient clinics in the AANES.

However, maintaining adequate food hygiene and access to clean drinking water has become increasingly difficult for most Syrians since the onset of the economic crisis and the currency collapse of 2019, which were compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and the spiraling price of food and fuel since the outbreak of war in Ukraine earlier this year.

According to the World Food Programme, the average price of food items in Syria has risen 532 percent since 2020. As a result, some 12 million people still living in Syria are now considered food insecure.

“Goods have become unattainable,” said Ahmad. “Talk on the street is that death is the best escape. And it will come, if not from cholera or COVID-19, then from hunger.”




A Syrian boy carries a bucket of water at the Sahlah Al-Banat camp for displaced people in the countryside of Raqa, in northern Syria. (AFP)

Conditions in neighboring Lebanon, where millions of Syrians have sought refuge in crowded camps since the outbreak of civil war, are not much better.

Already grappling with its own unprecedented economic crisis, which has thrown 80 percent of its citizens into poverty and left its infrastructure in tatters, Lebanon has also recorded cases of cholera.

Firass Abiad, Lebanon’s health minister, confirmed on Tuesday that the country had recorded 17 cholera deaths and 93 hospitalizations nationwide, including cases in the capital Beirut.

The government is trying to secure 600,000 vaccine doses for the most vulnerable, including prisoners, frontline workers and refugees residing in cramped and often squalid camps.

For most Syrians and Lebanese, who must foot their own medical bills amid rising prices and shattered health infrastructure, the omens are not good.

“I don’t even know where to start. If I get infected I don’t know if I can afford or even have a hospital bed ready for me,” Lina, a Lebanese citizen living in Akkar, a poverty-stricken area of northern Lebanon, told Arab News.

“Life has become unbearably difficult. But, at the end of the day, it’s just another way to die.”


Tunisia rescues 64 migrants off eastern Mediterranean coast

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Tunisia rescues 64 migrants off eastern Mediterranean coast

TUNIS: Authorities in Tunisia say 64 migrants were rescued from a boat that capsized off the country’s eastern Mediterranean coast after running out of fuel.

The country’s national customs agency said in a statement that maritime patrols sent to the capsized vessel rescued 64 people of various nationalities off the coast of Mahdia on Friday evening. No deaths were reported.

“The rescued migrants were trying to cross by boat toward the European space illegally,” the customs agency said.

Initial findings of the investigation suggest that the migrants had set off from an unnamed neighboring country, likely to be Libya.

The migrants were taken to the port of Chebba, 60 km north of Sfax, for further investigation.

More than 30,000 migrants set sail from Libya and arrived in Italy in 2024, according to UNHCR. 

The UN refugee agency said 61 percent of those arriving in Italy by sea came from Libya, followed by 32 percent from Tunisia.

The UN’s International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 100 migrants have died or gone missing in the central Mediterranean off the coast of Tunisia and Libya since the beginning of 2025. 

There is no official data about the actual number of migrants living in Libya.


80,000 Palestinians perform Ramadan prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque despite Israeli restrictions

Updated 49 min 28 sec ago
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80,000 Palestinians perform Ramadan prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque despite Israeli restrictions

  • Most worshippers were residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel
  • Israeli military police raided compound on Monday, detained 3 individuals

LONDON: Nearly 80,000 Palestinians performed the evening and Taraweeh prayers on the fourth night of the holy month of Ramadan at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, despite Israeli restrictions.

The Jerusalem Waqf and Al-Aqsa Mosque Affairs Department, which is responsible for administering the site, said that most of the 80,000 worshippers were residents of Jerusalem and Palestinian citizens of Israel living in the 1948 territory.

However, thousands of Palestinians from cities and towns in the occupied West Bank were barred entry to Jerusalem through Israeli military checkpoints, it added, as Israel had introduced new restrictive measures during Ramadan.

Israeli military police raided the compound on Monday and detained three individuals, according to the Palestine News Agency. Israel also deployed additional forces in the Old City in occupied East Jerusalem over the weekend at the start of Ramadan.

Muslims worldwide fast from dawn until sunset, participating in the nightly Taraweeh prayers during Ramadan.


Syria state media says Israel strikes Tartus area

Syrian state media said Israeli strikes hit the Tartus area on Monday. (File/AFP)
Updated 53 min 13 sec ago
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Syria state media says Israel strikes Tartus area

  • Official news agency SANA reported “air strikes carried out by Israeli occupation aircraft on the surroundings of Tartus city, without recording human losses so far”

DAMASCUS: Syrian state media said Israeli strikes hit the Tartus area on Monday, after a war monitor reported a blast near the city’s port and the Israeli army said it struck a “military site” further north.
Israel carried out hundreds of air strikes after a lightning offensive ousted president Bashar Assad in December, in what it said was a bid to prevent Syrian military assets from falling into hostile hands.
Official news agency SANA reported “air strikes carried out by Israeli occupation aircraft on the surroundings of Tartus city, without recording human losses so far.”
“Civil defense and specialized teams are working to confirm the location of the targets,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said that “a strong explosion rocked the Tartus port” at the same time as aircraft flew overhead, reporting smoke rising from the site.
Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP the explosion was in a military base near the port.
The Israeli army said in a statement that its forces “struck a military site where weapons belonging to the previous Syrian regime were stored in the area of Qardaha.”
It added that the decision to strike the site was “due to recent developments in the area,” without elaborating.
Qardaha, the hometown of deposed president Assad, is located in Latakia province, some 60 kilometers (40 miles) north of the city of Tartus.
Last Tuesday, the Israeli army said it carried out air strikes targeting military sites containing weapons in southern Syria.
At least two people were killed by a strike on one of the sites, the headquarters of a military unit southwest of Damascus, the Observatory said at the time.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last month that southern Syria must be completely demilitarised, warning that his government would not accept the presence of the forces of the new Syrian Islamist-led government near its territory.
Even before Assad’s fall, during Syria’s civil war which broke out in 2011, Israel carried out hundreds of strikes in the neighboring country, mainly on government forces and Iranian-linked targets.
The same day Assad was ousted, Israel announced that its troops were entering a UN-patrolled buffer zone that has separated Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights.
Israel seized much of the Golan Heights from Syria in a war in 1967, later annexing the area in a move largely unrecognized by the international community.
Participants in Syria’s national dialogue conference last week affirmed their rejection of “provocative” statements by Netanyahu and urged the international community to pressure Israel to stop any “aggression and violations,” condemning “the Israeli incursion into Syrian territory.”
Israel on the weekend threatened action if Syria’s new leaders harmed the country’s Druze community, after unrest in a Damascus suburb home to members of the religious minority.


Israel PM warns Hamas of consequences it ‘cannot imagine’ if Gaza hostages not released

Israelis take part in a protest calling for the release of the hostages held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas, in Jerusalem.
Updated 03 March 2025
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Israel PM warns Hamas of consequences it ‘cannot imagine’ if Gaza hostages not released

  • “I tell Hamas: If you do not release our hostages, there will be consequences that you cannot imagine,” Netanyahu said
  • Netanyahu’s comments came a day after Israel blocked aid flowing into Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Hamas on Monday of consequences it “cannot imagine” if the Palestinian movement does not release the hostages held in Gaza.
“I tell Hamas: If you do not release our hostages, there will be consequences that you cannot imagine,” Netanyahu said during a speech at the Israeli parliament, as negotiations for the Gaza ceasefire’s continuation have stalled.
Netanyahu’s comments came a day after Israel blocked aid flowing into Gaza, where a six-week truce had enabled a surge of vital food, shelter and medical assistance after more than 15 months of fighting.
The move came as talks on a truce extension appeared to hit an impasse, after the ceasefire’s 42-day first phase drew to a close over the weekend.
Under the first phase, Gaza militants handed over 25 living hostages and eight bodies in exchange for the release of about 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Of the 251 captives taken during Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, 58 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Early on Sunday, Israel had announced its support for a truce extension until mid-April that it said US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff had proposed.
But Hamas has repeatedly rejected an extension, instead favoring a transition to the truce deal’s second phase, which is expected to lay out a more permanent end to the war.
Israeli media on Monday reported that Netanyahu had a plan to exert “maximum pressure” on Hamas to accept an extension of the first phase of the Gaza ceasefire under Israel’s terms.
Public broadcaster Kan reported that Netanyahu wanted to extend the first stage by at least one week, until the arrival of US envoy Witkoff in the region.
Referencing sources close to Netanyahu, Kan reported that the prime minister was waiting to see if mediators could persuade Hamas to extend the first phase, failing which he would consider resuming fighting.
Kan said Israel has drafted plans to ramp up pressure on Hamas this week, under a scheme dubbed the “Hell Plan.”
The plan includes following up the decision to block aid with displacing residents from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, halting the electricity supply, and a resumption of full-scale fighting, Kan reported.
Daily paper Israel Hayom said that Netanyahu, unlike his far-right allies in government, “wants to exhaust all possibilities of freeing hostages before returning to war.”


Arab top diplomats hold closed-door talks over post-war Gaza

Updated 03 March 2025
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Arab top diplomats hold closed-door talks over post-war Gaza

  • Summit focused on a plan to counter US President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza and expel its residents
  • Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held separate meetings with Arab counterparts

CAIRO: Arab foreign ministers met behind closed doors in Cairo on Monday ahead of an extraordinary Arab League summit focused on a plan to counter US President Donald Trump’s proposal to take over Gaza and expel its residents.
The ministers held a “preparatory and consultative” session centered on an Arab plan to reconstruct the war-battered enclave without displacing its 2.4 million residents, a source at the Arab League told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The meeting was closed to the press, the source said, adding that the plan “would be presented to Arab leaders at Tuesday’s summit for approval.”
Ahead of the session, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held separate meetings with Arab counterparts, including from Jordan, Bahrain, Tunisia, Iraq and Yemen, as well as the Palestinian top diplomat.
During the meetings, Abdelatty called for “moving forward with early recovery projects” in Gaza without displacing Palestinians, an Egyptian foreign ministry statement said.
Trump triggered global outrage when he floated a plan for the United States to “take over” the Gaza Strip and turn it into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” while forcing its Palestinian residents to relocate to Egypt and Jordan.
The plan has united Arab countries in opposition, with Riyadh hosting a consultative meeting of Arab leaders last month to discuss “joint efforts in support of the Palestinian cause.”
At a news conference in Cairo on Sunday, Abdelatty said the Gaza reconstruction plan was ready and would be presented to Arab leaders at the summit in Cairo for approval.
Trump has recently appeared to soften his stance on the plan.
“I think that’s a plan that really works, but I’m not forcing it,” Trump said. “I’m just gonna sit back and recommend it.”