Due to random shelling on the Syrian cities and villages by the regime forces, most institutions and drinking water stations, sanitation, hygiene and their infrastructure are out of order. The latter entailed the following issues:

• The regime stopped operating all pumping stations in non-regime areas, by preventing and arresting administrative and executive staffs that operate them, and stopped stations under its control from nurturing liberated areas.
• Tax collection was put on hold, resulting in insufficient funds for fuel, salaries and periodic maintenance needed to operate the stations.
• Lack of sterilizing and water treatment materials. This led to pumping unsterilized water, responsible for the spread of new diseases.
• Drinking water and sanitation networks have been targeted, causing drinking water and sewage to mix. The result was a spread of epidemics and serious diseases like acute bloody diarrhea, cholera, polio and typhoid fever.
• Difficulty of providing spare parts.

All the above reasons drove people to:

1. Search for other sources of water such as old shallow wells, streams and agricultural wells, which are often contaminated due to sewage leak.
2. Stopping waste removal operations in towns and villages led to the spread of epidemics and diseases.

Assistance Coordination Unit, provided the current conditions, is supporting WASH projects according to the following objectives:

• Ensuring sterile drinking water sources for all people and compensating any shortages in drinking water resulting from regime practices or changing of conditions through:

1. Rehabilitating and activating water projects.
2. Creating new projects.
3. Reactivating the sterilization of drinking water processes and monitoring its quality.
4. Using alternative sources of energy to activate projects.
5. Supporting operating expenses like fuel and salaries.

• Eliminating contamination in all water bodies (rivers, Lakes) through: rehabilitating and activating old sewage networks and establishing new ones.
• Removing wastes from towns and villages, and adopting a natural cleaning system to preserve the environment, and prevent the spread of epidemics and diseases resulting from the accumulation of wastes through: supporting operating expenses like fuel and salaries, maintaining wastes removal vehicles, and supporting wastes removal and transfer vehicles.

The funds provided by Assistance Coordination Unit in this sector are distributed as follows:

• 2013: $ 728,000 seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand USD only.
• 2014: $ 604,442 six hundred and four thousand and four hundred and forty-two USD.
• In the beginning of 2015, Assistance Coordination Unit signed several memorandums of understanding with the local councils of besieged areas, with a support of $317,367 three hundred and seventeen thousand, three hundred and sixty seven USD.