Syrians Left in the Dark as the Interim Government Struggles to Restore Electricity 

Lights illuminate a few windows of a damaged building in Damascus, Syria, early Thursday, March 27, 2025. (AP)
Lights illuminate a few windows of a damaged building in Damascus, Syria, early Thursday, March 27, 2025. (AP)
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Syrians Left in the Dark as the Interim Government Struggles to Restore Electricity 

Lights illuminate a few windows of a damaged building in Damascus, Syria, early Thursday, March 27, 2025. (AP)
Lights illuminate a few windows of a damaged building in Damascus, Syria, early Thursday, March 27, 2025. (AP)

Rana Al-Ahmad opens her fridge after breaking fast at sundown with her husband and four children during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Apart from eggs, potatoes and some bread, it’s empty because state electricity in Syria only comes two hours a day.

“We can’t leave our food in the fridge because it will spoil,” she said.

Her husband, a taxi driver in Damascus, is struggling to make ends meet, so the family can’t afford to install a solar panel in their two-room apartment in Jaramana on the outskirts of the capital.

Months after a lightning insurgency ended over half a century of the Assad dynasty’s rule in Syria, the interim government has been struggling to fix battered infrastructure after a 14-year conflict decimated much of the country. Severe electricity shortages continue to plague the war-torn country.

The United Nations estimates that 90% of Syrians live in poverty and the Syrian government has only been able to provide about two hours of electricity every day. Millions of Syrians, like Al-Ahmad and her family, can’t afford to pay hefty fees for private generator services or install solar panels.

Syria's new authorities under interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa have tried to ease the country's electricity crisis, but have been unable to stop the outages with patchwork solutions.

Even with a recent gas deal with Qatar and an agreement with Kurdish-led authorities that will give them access to Syria's oil fields, the country spends most of its days with virtually no power. Reports of oil shipments coming from Russia, a key military and political ally of Assad, shows the desperation.

Pitch black

At Al-Ahmad’s home, she and her husband were only able to get a small battery that could power some lights.

“The battery we have is small and its charge runs out quickly,” said Al-Ahmad, 37. It’s just enough that her children can huddle in the living room to finish their homework after school.

And the family is not alone. Everywhere in Syria, from Damascus to Daraa in the south, neighborhoods turn pitch black once the sun sets, lit only from street lamps, mosque minarets and car headlights.

The downfall of Assad in December brought rare hope to Syrians. But the new interim authorities have scrambled to establish control across the country and convince Western nations to lift economic sanctions to make its economy viable again.

The United States in January eased some restrictions for six months, authorizing some energy-related transactions. But it doesn’t appear to have made a significant difference on the ground just yet.

Battered and bruised fields

Washington and other Western governments face a delicate balance with Syria’s new authorities, and appear to be keen on lifting restrictions only if the war-torn country’s political transition is democratic and inclusive of Syrian civil society, women and minorities.

Fixing Syria’s damaged power plants and oil fields takes time, so Damascus is racing to get as much fuel as it can to produce more energy.

Damascus is now looking towards the northeastern provinces, where its oil fields under Kurdish-led authorities are to boost its capacity, especially after reaching a landmark ceasefire deal with them.

Political economist Karam Shaar said 85% of the country’s oil production is based in those areas, and Syria once exported crude oil in exchange for refined oil to boost local production, though the fields are battered and bruised from years of conflict.

These crucial oil fields fell into the hands of the extremist ISIS group, which held large swaths of Syria and Iraq from 2014 to 2017.

“It’s during that period where much of the damage to the (oil) sector happened,” said Shaar, highlighting intense airstrikes and fighting against the group by a US-led international coalition.

After ISIS fell, the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) took control of key fields, leaving them away from the central government in Damascus. The new authorities hope to resolve this in a landmark deal with the SDF signed earlier this month.

Kamran Omar, who oversees oil production in the Rmeilan oil fields in the northeastern city of Hassakeh, says shortages in equipment and supplies and clashes that persisted with Türkiye and Turkish-backed forces have slowed down production, but told the AP that some of that production will eventually go to households and factories in other parts of Syria.

The fields only produce a fraction of what they once did. The Rmeilan field sends just 15,000 of the approximately 100,000 barrels they produce to other parts of Syria to ease some of the burden on the state.

The authorities in Damascus also hope that a recent deal with Qatar that would supply them with gas through Jordan to a major plant south of the capital will be the first of more agreements.

The cornerstone of recovery

Syria's authorities have not acknowledged reports of Russia sending oil shipments to the country. Moscow once aided Assad in the conflict against the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group that toppled the former president, but this shows that they are willing to stock up on fuel from whoever is offering.

Interim Electricity Minister Omar Shaqrouq admitted in a news conference that bringing back electricity to Syrian homes 24 hours a day is not on the horizon.

“It will soon be four hours, but maybe some more in the coming days.”

Increasing that supply will be critical for the battered country, which hopes to ease the economic woes of millions and bring about calm and stability. Shaar, who has visited and met with Syria’s new authorities, says that the focus on trying to bring fuel in the absence of funding for major infrastructural overhauls is the best Damascus can do given how critical the situation is.

“Electricity is the cornerstone of economic recovery,” said Shaar. “Without electricity you can’t have a productive sector, (or any) meaningful industries.”



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.