JINHA

AMED – Engineers reporting on the damage of Kobanê at the Diyarbakır reconstruction conferencehave announced their recommendations for city reconstruction. They stressed the need for a democratic and ecological city plan sensitive to the social and psychological needs of a population that has survived war.

The Diyarbakır provincial branch of the Union of Chambers of Turkish Engineers and Architects presented their preliminary report on damage to the city of Kobanê at the conference today, ongoing in the Cegerxwîn Culture and Art Center in the main Kurdish city of Diyarbakır.

The city, made up of 13 neighborhoods spread over six square kilometers, now has over 9,000 damaged or destroyed homes and nearly 3,000 damaged or destroyed workplaces. Just 630 homes remain unharmed. Tens of thousands of Kobanê residents have migrated back to the city since its liberation in January. Seven of the city's neighborhoods (Rojava Botan, Şehid Moro, ŞehidSerhed, ŞehidAkif, ŞehidFiras, RojhilatBotan, and ŞehidPeyman) have been severely damaged .

The city's electricity has long come from a dam on the Euphrates River, although it was subject to the arbitrary shutdown of the ruling powers before the war. Although the electrical substations are largely unharmed, the electrical networkitselfis severely damaged. Current generators (mostly owned by private persons) can supply lighting to only 25% of the city, although the report said the problem could be solve by provisioning further generators.

Kobanê, which before the war supplied 35-40% of Syria's need for cereals and grains, now has only 15-20% of its fields in an irrigated state. 80% of tractors have been destroyed. Grain silos remained undamaged, since Daesh relied on them during the war, but Daesh forces seized a large number of the region's animal herds.

"Because the city is under threat of war at any moment, it needs to be developed with a focus on defense," said the report, "but this must be done in a way that does not leave scars on social memory and does not have negative subconscious effects." The report also cautioned that the planning process needed to involve consensus between the canton administrators and those parts of the population who have been most disadvantaged by the war.

On the subject of the proposed museum to be made out of parts of the old city, the report recommended the participation of professional architects in the process and cleaning services in preserving ruins.

(gc/fk/cm)