Statement by Melita Gabrič Deputy Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia at the UNSC Arria formula meeting on Protection of Water and Related Infrastructure in Armed Conflicts

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, dear colleagues,

Welcome to today’s Arria formula meeting on “Freshwater Resources and Related Infrastructure under Attack. Protecting Water in Armed Conflict – Protecting Civilian Lives”.

This event is organized in partnership with fellow Security Council members Algeria, Panama and Sierra Leone. We are extremely grateful also to our co-sponsors from the Global Alliance to Spare Water from Armed Conflict, namely Costa Rica, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan, Mozambique, the Philippines, Senegal, Switzerland and Viet Nam.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the essence of today‘s meeting is plain and simple. How much longer will we allow water to come under attack?

Stories of tens of thousands of civilians caught in armed conflicts around the globe are a testimony to the relevance of this question.

A story of a Palestinian boy in Rafah, forced to drink from a puddle in the blistering summer heat – after explosives wired to the Canada Water reservoir damaged a facility that once held three million litres of life-sustaining water.

Or a Sudanese mother in Khartoum – one among 2,5 million people – struggling to access safe water, as drone strikes on the Merowe Dam shattered the operations of vital water stations.

It is about the humanitarian workers and repair personnel in Southern Lebanon who paid with their lives while attempting to restore basic water services for the few residents who remained there.

It is about an older Syrian farmer striving to recover after years of war and despair, trying to rebuild in the fragile peace – standing before the ruins of once vital irrigation system.

It is about an internally displaced family searching for a shelter after the destruction of Kakhovka Dam and consequent flooding in Ukraine.

One of the most pressing and often overlooked consequences of war is the disruption of water and sanitation services.

Wells are poisoned, pipelines cut off. Irrigation systems dismantled, pumping stations silent, water treatment plants bombed. Freshwater resources contaminated.

As the Secretary-General’s report on the Protection of Civilians documents attacks on water infrastructure in Gaza, Sudan, Lebanon and Syria, this Council needs no reminder: Access to clean water is a fundamental human right and a matter of survival, anywhere, but in particular in conflict zones. And yet, time and again, we witness water turning into both a weapon and a casualty of war.

For millions of civilians, especially children, attacks on water bring dehydration, malnutrition, waterborne disease and collapse of livelihoods, with devastating immediate and long-term consequences for public health.

Attacks on water undo years of development, deepen the humanitarian crisis, and threaten international peace and security. The rising number of attacks on freshwater resources and related infrastructure demands the UN Security Council’s attention.

This is why the conveners of today’s meeting bring the question of protection of civilians and public health to the forefront.

Allow me to bring to the discussion the following three points in my national capacity:

Firstly, protection of civilians and civilian objects under international humanitarian law is non-negotiable. Slovenia strongly condemns indiscriminate and disproportional attacks on freshwater resources and related infrastructure, and against the dedicated civilian personnel who operate, maintain, and repair these vital lifelines.

Irrigation systems, drinking water facilities, and supplies enjoy special protection under international humanitarian law, and Slovenia urges all parties to armed conflicts to take constant care to spare civilian objects.

The Council should systematically incorporate the protection of water into the consideration of the items on its agenda, and work with the UN system and the humanitarian actors to address the immediate, long-term, and cumulative impact of attacks on freshwater resources and related infrastructure.

Secondly, beyond the legal imperative, protecting water is a moral imperative. The effects of damaged water systems and broken dams linger long after the guns fall silent. Collapsed water treatment plants stall a nation’s path towards recovery. Destroyed irrigation systems exacerbate food insecurity. Polluted springs and rivers hamper the promise of newly won peace. Safe water is essential both to human lives and for restoring peace and stability, post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding.

We must safeguard, protect, respect, and promote the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation during armed conflicts and prevent the cascading, generational and often gendered humanitarian consequences.

And thirdly, it is vital to allow the civilian operators, maintenance and repair personnel to deliver what they do best: restoring the water flow.

We must ensure that men and women working quietly to provide millions of civilians with life-sustaining safe drinking water, carry out their work in safety and security.

Excellencies,

We need a collective action to reverse the trend of normalizing attacks on water. Countless civilian lives – that of the Palestinian boy and other children, that of the Sudanese mother and other women, that of the Syrian farmer and other older persons, that of that Lebanese engineer and other humanitarian personnel, and that of the Ukrainian and other families – living in the active zones of conflict and protracted crises depend on it.

It was with this in mind that, exactly a year ago, Slovenia launched the Global Alliance to Spare Water from Armed Conflicts, joining forces with states, international organizations and civil society partners. A joint mission to prevent weaponization of water brought us together in this arria meeting today.

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