Human conflict over water resources

Although water is the source of life, and nothing could live without it, on occasions humans fought and killed for it, a reflection of human greediness. It happened so that countries went to war because of water resources, especially once shared between countries. Political tensions triggered and followed by border skirmishes and in few occasions led to a military showdown all because of conflicting water interests. Unfortunately, countries and nations still have not learned to live together in peace and tranquility; they have not learned to share resources in ways that would avoid military rows between themselves. In different parts of the world and in different continents political relationships deteriorated between sovereign entities and got close to a possible military conflict. The Syrian, Iraqi, and Turkish Euphrates ordeal is one of many examples. In late 90’s the region was on the brick of a war due to Syrian Turkish competition on the waters of the Euphrates River. In the late 60’s Israel did go to war with Syria, Egypt, and Jordan under the pretext of water conflict between Syria and Israel. In the year 2002, Lebanon and Israel got very close to engage in a war because of the Wazani River. Egypt has had some political debates with African states in regard of the distribution of the Nile’s water. Although the UN should have helped in controlling the distribution and disbursement of international waters, some countries have decided to settle their conflicts outside of its chambers. In this article, some light will be focused on some of these conflicts and border skirmishes to understand how to avoid such conflicts in the future, and to understand how water is deeply integrated in politics and observe how they mingle.