ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Since the start of winter, residents of the Cizire canton of the Kurdish area of Syria known as Rojava have been suffering from electricity cuts and high gas prices due to the war and violence in the region.
"The democratic self administration cannot control the electricity. The [Syrian] regime is still controlling that and its availability is still very little, but it is present. The Kurdish region is surrounded by ISIS and other terrorist organizations and this affects the life of the people due to the siege and high prices," a political analyst, whose name is not given, told Rudaw Wednesday.
Residents have called on the local self-administered government, which has helped distribute about 60 percent of the needed diesel fuel, to help ease the crisis, said a Rudaw reporter.
Meanwhile, the local government has said it is doing all it can to prepare for emergencies.
"We are at the beginning of the winter and the preparations for any emergency, whether it's rain, floods, snow or closed roads, is going forward fully," said the president of the Energy Department of the Cizire canton.
Due to the high price of diesel fuel, the administration of the Cizire canton decided to distribute diesel for the last two months at 60 percent of capacity, which is still not enough to meet the heating needs of winter. The local government confirmed it would take full responsibility of dealing with any emergency cases of flood and closing roads during the winter.
"We distributed diesel two months ago to control the situation and so far we given 60 percent of the diesel to the people and the storage available is according to the availability in our region," a Gas station owner in the canton, told Rudaw.
"Electricity is still available and the fuel is available but very expensive due to the economic siege in the region. We ask the democratic self administration of Al Qamishli in the Cizire canton to help businesses survive this crisis," said Saed Aldeen Bahri a resident of the Cizire canton.
Cizire is the largest of three cantons of the de facto autonomous Kurdish region of Rojava in Northern Syria. As part of the ongoing Rojava campaign, its democratic autonomy was officially declared on January 21 2014
