Over 90% of Syrians in displacement camps fear water shortages amid scorching summer: survey

Over 90 percent of displaced persons in Syria's displacement camps are concerned about water supply, amid a 'severe lack of water security' in the region, according to a humanitarian response group.

Children, whose families were displaced due to the war in Syria, stand outside their shelter, in the north of the country.(UNOCHA)

Jul 31, 2022

Over 90 percent of displaced people in Northern Syria’s camps are concerned about access to water amid a scorching summer, according to a survey released on Thursday by the Syrian Response Coordination Group.

When highlighting their needs, 92 percent of displaced persons (IDPs) surveyed stated a need for “securing water subsidies inside the camps and increasing their quantities during the summer”.

In addition, 79 percent of IDPs were concerned about the prevalence of skin diseases in the camps as a result of “the severe lack of water security”.

Over 590 camps out of 1,489 in the northwest suffer from a complete lack of water supply, with an additional 269 camps not receiving sufficient quantities of water, according to the response group.

The humanitarian response group surveyed over 30,000 IDPs with the aim of highlighting their basic needs amid rising temperatures – which have reached 44 degrees Celsius as the heat is expected to continue, according to Syria TV.

The struggle of IDP’s – who are already living in difficult conditions amid an alarming shortage of basic needs and humanitarian aid – is exacerbated by the lack of water resource, as the vast majority of them depend mainly on humanitarian aid for survival.

“We urgently call on humanitarian organisations to take their responsibility towards the displaced in the camps in northwestern Syria, which is inhabited by more than a million and a half civilians, in the face of [rising] temperatures,” the Syrian Response Coordination Group said earlier this month.

The group called for humanitarian groups to provide water and firefighting equipment, and to cool the camps, so that IDP’s can be better prepared for the scorching season.

The IDP’s fled their homes over the course of the decade-long Syrian civil war, which has killed over 500,000 people, largely at the hands of the Syrian regime and its ally Russia.