DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – The United Nations has warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in Syria due to deliberate acts of sabotage by Daesh terrorists targeting a key dam and U.S.-led coalition air raids on the facility.
The UN raised alarm about high water levels in the Tabqa dam, commonly known as the Euphrates dam, an earth-filled facility on the Euphrates River located 40 kilometers upstream from the Daesh-held Syrian city of Raqqah.
Water levels on the river have risen by some 10 meters since January 24 due mainly to the Daesh opening of three turbines of the dam and partly as a result of heavy rainfall and snow, the report said.      
"As per local experts, any further rise of the water level would submerge huge swathes of agricultural land along the river and could potentially damage the Tabqa dam, which would have catastrophic humanitarian implications in all areas downstream,” the UN report further said.
It also noted that the U.S.-led aerial attacks had already damaged the entrance to the dam.
"For example, on 16 January 2017, airstrikes on the western countryside of Raqqah impacted the entrance of the Euphrates dam, which, if further damaged, could lead to massive scale flooding across Raqqah and as far away as Dayr al-Zawr,” the report added.
Syria has been fighting foreign-sponsored terrorism since March 2011. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura estimated in August last year that more than 400,000 people had been killed in the Syrian crisis until then.
The UN has stopped its official casualty count in Syria, citing its inability to verify the figures it receives from various sources.
Kazakhstan says a new round of Syria negotiations, which was slated to open in Astana on Wednesday, has been delayed until Thursday.
"The beginning of the next high-level session, within the framework of the Astana process on the Syrian settlement, has been moved to noon of February 16, 2017,” the Kazakh Foreign Ministry’s press service announced on Wednesday.
The statement came hours after Syria’s state-run television network reported that the opening of the negotiations between Damascus and opposition groups had been put off until Thursday, because the delegations of the armed opposition and Turkey had not arrived in Kazakhstan’s capital yet.