Oil waste pollutes water, endangers lives in northeast Syria

  • Date: 23-Jul-2020
  • Source: Arab Weekly
  • Sector:Industrial
  • Country:GCC
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Oil waste pollutes water, endangers lives in northeast Syria

RMEILAN -  Oil pollution in Syria has been a growing concern since the 2011 onset of a civil war that has taken a toll on oil infrastructure and seen rival powers compete over control of key hydrocarbon fields.

In the Kurdish-held northeast, a large storage facility in the Rmeilan oil field in Hasakeh province is of particular concern, according to the Dutch peace organisation PAX.

Oil leaks from the Gir Zero storage facility have been suspected since at least 2014, the latest in March, it said in a June report.

Thousands of barrels have leaked out into creeks in the area over the past five years, threatening the health and livelihoods of people in dozens of villages, according to PAX and Samir Madani, co-founder of oil shipping website Tanker Trackers.

In his village near a northeast Syria oil facility, Abdulkarim Matar said he has watched his horses die because of oil spills that have polluted waterways in the resource-rich region.

US military vehicle pass by sheep grazing and drinking from a stream polluted by an oil spill  in the countryside south of Rmeilan in Syria's Kurdish-controlled northeastern Hasakeh province. (AFP)

The landowner said winter floods caused oil waste from a nearby storage facility to spill over onto