Turkey-Continues-To-Weaponize-Alok
www.stj-sy.org Turkey Continues to Weaponize Alok Water amid COVID-19 Outbreak in Syria Turkey Continues to Weaponize Alok Water amid COVID-19 Outbreak in Syria Turkey hampers the urgent response to Coronavirus Pandemic by cutting off water to over 600.000 population in northeast Syria Page | 2 www.stj-sy.org Turkey Continues to Weaponize Alok Water amid COVID-19 Outbreak in Syria 1. Legal analysis a) International Humanitarian Law Water is indispensable to civilian populations. It is not only essential to drink, but also for agricultural purposes and sanitation, all the more important in the wake of the COVID-19 sanitary crisis. Although at first neglecting the significance of water and food for civilian populations caught in armed conflicts, drafters of the Geneva Conventions’ Protocol remedied the gap by including, in Article 54 Additional Protocol I and in Article 14 Additional Protocol II for International and Non-International Armed Conflicts (IACs and NIACs) respectively, the protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. Involving two states, that of Syria and that of Turkey, the ongoing conflict currently taking place in northeast Syria is of international character. As a result, and in application of these provisions, in IACs: It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.
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