Northeast Syria, where the majority of the country’s oil reserves are located, is suffering from an acute fuel shortage. The Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration that controls northeastern Syria is not producing enough oil and gas to meet the demand, and civilians living under its control are accusing it of corruption and inequitable distribution.

“I stood in line for an hour until I got 26 liters of diesel, which is much less than what I need, but there is no alternative,” a man living in Western Qamishli told Al-Monitor under the pseudonym of Sirwan Hami. “I’ve also been looking for a gas cylinder since the beginning of February, and I have yet to find one,” he said. 

Diesel and gas are essential supplies for families in the area. More than one out of five of northeast Syria’s residents are internally displaced people, according to an estimate by the UN Humanitarian Needs Assessment Program in November 2020. Many of them live in informal or substandard accommodations, leaving them especially vulnerable to Syria’s cold winters. Temperatures dropped as low as 17 degrees Fahrenheit this year. 

Though the administration devised a plan to distribute free diesel in northeast Syria, intending to give each family three 440-liter rations of diesel, residents complained to Al-Monitor that they had only received one ration while others had received no fuel at all.