According to the International Rescue Committee, an escalating cholera outbreak in Syria has been caused by private companies selling raw water to desperate communities.
In the past three weeks, about 6,000 people have contracted the disease and at least 36 have died in northern Syria, in an outbreak that shows little sign of slowing down.
Cholera – a highly contagious bacterial disease – causes severe diarrhea and vomiting that, if left untreated, can result in death. It is caught by drinking water contaminated with feces or by eating food grown or prepared with contaminated water.
The outbreak has been linked to raw sewage in the Euphrates River, which runs 1,740 miles through Turkey, Syria and Iraq and is said to have once flowed through the biblical Garden of Eden. In the three countries, it supports more than 60 million people.
While some people drink water straight from the river, a dirty water scam — in which unregulated water trucks claim to sell clean water — is the main cause of the outbreak, according to the IRC.
“These trucks go to the Euphrates River and collect water, but they don’t treat it. And then they sell it to communities that just don’t have the water they need to survive,” Jennifer Higgins, policy and advocacy coordinator for IRC Syria, told the Telegraph.