In a statement on July 12, the society, which reports on the Kurdish
minority in Syria, said an undetermined number of soldiers have died of the
"unknown disease." On July 10, the statement said, 10 Army recruits were
rushed to a hospital in the northeastern city of Qamishli and were reported
in critical condition.
The Syrian military has not acknowledged the epidemic. But officials
have confirmed that Syrian hospitals were treating many people for
exhaustion and other illnesses related to the current heat wave in the
Levant.
This marked the second report by the Syrian opposition of an epidemic
that has struck the Army. The first report said many Syrian soldiers were
hospitalized by what appeared to be dysentery. The disease was attributed to
a lack of water, food and poor sanitary conditions in Syrian military
training camps.
"There has been a lot of speculation about the reasons for this disease,
some blaming the vaccines given to new soldiers, which may have been
corrupted," the West Kurdistan Society said. "Others attributed the cause to
the state of the weather as there is a wave of intense heat and high
temperatures. Some attribute it to a bacterial contamination in water and
food in the barracks, and so far this is limited to members of the military,
not Syrian civilians."
The Kurdish group said Syrian hospitals were overflowing with soldiers
and civil servants believed infected by the epidemic. The report said Syrian
physicians have failed to reach a diagnosis and were hampered by poor
equipment and training.
So far, at least 14 soldiers, all of them new recruits, were said to
have died in the epidemic. The Kurdish group cited deaths in military
hospitals in Harasta and Teshrin.
"The Syrian government is unable to provide quick solutions to reduce
the spread of the disease, which has turned into a nightmare that haunts
members of the Army and the Syrian community in general," the statement
said.