SORKEL SHEIKHO

QAMISHLO_ The electricity outage crisis in Qamishlo city in Rojava has worsened, with its repercussions going beyond disrupting daily life and paralyzing the movement of businesses and commercial interests dependent on energy, turning into a growing economic burden weighing on families, amid escalating popular anger and discontent over the continuation of the crisis and the absence of solutions.

For more than a month, the city has been living under a long and continuous power outage, simultaneously with a widespread stoppage of private generators in the neighborhoods, and a decline in feeding hours from the public grid. These conditions have doubled the suffering of residents, reduced their ability to meet their basic needs, and imposed additional living and financial burdens on them in the absence of reliable alternatives to secure electricity.

The crisis is worsening in light of the Syrian Ministry of Energy's failure to provide the fuel needed to operate generators, which has led to hundreds of them going out of service.

Students Study in the Dark

Two months have passed since the opening of schools and the launch of the 2026–2027 academic year, and the suffering of students is not limited to the hardship of going to their schools, but extends to the difficulty of completing their homework and following up on their lessons at home. In light of the continuous power outage, many of them find themselves unable to study after nightfall, which negatively reflects on their psychological state, academic level, and ability to continue education.

Qamishlo city, like other cities in the Jazira region of Rojava, faces an acute crisis in securing electricity, amid the public outage and limited feeding hours, which increases the suffering of residents and burdens their daily loads, in the absence of real alternatives that allow them to overcome this crisis.

A Simple Alternative

Saya Ahmed Mardli, a daughter of Qamishlo city who is studying this year in the third grade of primary school, lives under the darkness that envelops her nights due to the ongoing electricity outage crisis, which puts her before difficulties preventing her from being able to study regularly.

About her daily suffering, she says: "Our electricity sometimes comes and sometimes goes. The difficulties I face are many. I go to school in the morning and study, then I return home, have lunch, and rest a little. But after that, the sun sets and darkness falls, and I cannot continue studying my lessons. The fuel has run out, the generators have stopped working, and the public electricity does not reach us."

While she was living this daily suffering, one day she was stopped by a story from the past that her mother told her, whose details remained stuck in her mind, and later turned into a simple idea through which she tries to find an alternative, even a modest one, to illuminate the darkness of the night.

With the arrival of evening, she begins implementing her idea. "Peel a potato and hollow it out, then pour oil inside it and place a piece of paper napkin in it and light it. It turns into something like a candle. And so that no one remains in the dark, they can make a candle like this in their homes."