Water & conflictWater scarcity increase Middle East instability
At least1.6 billion people worldwide face water scarcity because their countries lack the necessary infrastructure to move water from rivers and aquifers. In the Middle East, this lack of water infrastructure combines with the effects of global warming — including prolonged in droughts — to make the entire region politically and economically unstable. Food supplies are diminished as farmers find it difficult to find water for crops, and even basic sanitary requirements are not met due to poor access to clean water, thus increasing the spread of disease.
At least 1.6 billion people worldwide face water scarcity because their countries lack the necessary infrastructure to move water from rivers and aquifers. In the Middle East, this lack of water infrastructure combines with the effects of global warming — including prolonged in droughts — to make the entire region politically and economically unstable. Food supplies are diminished as farmers find it difficult to find water for crops, and even basic sanitary requirements are not met due to poor access to clean water, thus increasing the spread of disease.
During the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War, the Shi’a organization, designated a terrorist group by the United States, gained favor with many by distributing cans and bottles of fresh water to residents in areas bombed by Israel; earlier this year, Islamic State (ISIS) militants in Iraq seized water infrastructure, and controlled the Mosul and Fallujah dams to punish towns which refused to fall under its rule; and today, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is building wells in the Yemeni countryside just as Saudi airstrikes target Houthi rebel strongholds in urban areas.
—————————————————————————————————————-
See also:
- Water scarcity a contributing cause of wars, terrorism in Middle East, North Africa, 1 April 2015
- Climate change and the origins of the Syrian war, 3 March 2015
- ISIS uses control of water as a tool of war, 12 December 2014
—————————————————————————————————————-
“Too often, where we need water we find guns,” said United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in 2008, urging the world to put water scarcity at the top of the global agenda that year.
The current level of instability in Yemen has allowed terrorist groups to gain civilian support and territorial control when they provide what should have been government services such as water and electricity. Vice News reports that before Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi fled the country in February, his government had cut the country’s National Water Resources Authority budget by 70 percent. Houthi rebels, before launching the ongoing civil unrest, voiced complaints about the unequal distribution of water. Vice News notes that in parts of the country, farmers had stopped collecting and storing rainwater, instead relying on groundwater irrigation, which extracts water twelve times faster than it can be replenished. Yemen as a whole is drawing about 168 percent of its annual freshwater resources, “so the rate of ‘borrowing’ is quite high,” read a report by the American Institute of Yemeni Studies.
While Houthi rebels fight forces still loyal to Hadi, and Saudi air strikes continue, AQAP is building water infrastructure in the country’s rural villages to win local support. Gaining support through water is a strategy AQAP had developed years ago. In 2013, the AP discovered a document addressed to al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, in which AQAP suggested the group should try to win residents over by “taking care of their daily needs like water. Providing these necessities will have a great effect on people, and will make them sympathize with us and feel that their fate is tied to ours,” the document read.
