Attachments
As of 14 December, 240 sites including municipal buildings, schools, mosques, stadiums and residential buildings are being used as reception sites and collective centres to accommodate people across all NES areas. NGOs on the ground are assessing these sites to verify the number of individuals currently staying there.
Following the clashes in Manbij and the advancement of SNA in the area, NES NGOs present in Manbij continue to suspend their activities and their offices remain closed. This includes suspension of NGO-supported Health services in the community, and lifesaving WASH services in Manbij camps. Initial reports indicate that some civilians (including but not limited to NGO staff) have experienced discrimination and abuse on the basis of their ethnicity and/or perceived affiliations.
Alongside protests and reports of heightened security threats across Raqqa, Hasakeh, and Al Hol Camp in particular, access and delivery of service has continued to face challenges across all parts of NES. The Forum is currently working to map suspension of activities as a result of the current dynamics, whilst NGOs are still facing blocks to their movement at checkpoints across Raqqa, Tabqa, Hassakeh and Derik.
Late on the afternoon of 10 December, reports indicated that clashes in the vicinity of Tishreen Dam in Manbij affected the structure of the dam, and prevented technicians from accessing it to intervene.
Were the dam to stop functioning, impacts to electricity, water, and agriculture across NES would be severe. Were the dam to collapse, severe and rapid flooding could be expected, threatening loss of life and livelihood to nearly 1,000,000 individuals. Engagements have continued in the intervening days between humanitarian actors and local authorities on both sides, and over the course of 12-14 December humanitarian actors were able to access the dam to carry out urgent assessments, and to provide support to the dam’s engineers for maintenance work. The durability of a tentative ceasefire on the frontlines in Manbij will be seen in the coming days, however, if the fighting expands to Kobane large numbers of IDPs are expected to move towards the eastern side of NES (the Hasakeh, Qamishli, and/or Derik areas).