Strangled by the water policies of its neighbors, Turkey and Syria, a two-year drought and years of misuse by Iraq and its farmers, the Euphrates River is significantly smaller than it was just a few years ago, and some officials worry that it could soon be half of what it is now. Photo: Moises Saman for The New York Times

Damascus (AFP) June 22, 2010 – A severe four-year drought is devastating Syria’s rural communities, forcing them to abandon the country’s traditional breadbasket in the northeast for cities in search of employment. Earlier this month, the World Food Programme started delivering food aid to nearly 200,000 people in the provinces of Al-Hasakeh, Al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, areas worst hit by the drought. The WFP says tens of thousands of the most vulnerable families have benefited from the food aid programme. But due to low levels of funding, the UN food agency says 110,000 people are still in need. “The situation is really bad” in northeast Syria, said WFP official Selly Muzammil. It is the second time that food aid has been distributed in Syria since the United Nations initiated a plan last year to combat the drought in afflicted areas. The situation has triggered a mass exodus of people to urban areas in search of work. The UN estimates more than a million people have left the northeast for urban centres, with farmers simply not cultivating enough food or earning enough money to sustain them. One of them, Myassar Darwish al-Hussein, 22, came to Damascus from Deir Ezzor with his family three months ago, and found a job in a factory where he earns less than 200 dollars a month. In Deir Ezzor, “the crop yield has fallen by 70 percent,” he said. … “Deir Ezzor was… green. Today, it is completely dried out, the fields resemble the desert, the Khabour river is dry,” lamented a retired army officer who has lived near Damascus for 33 years. …

Job-hunting Syrians head for cities amid severe drought