Thousands of backyard oil refineries are scattered across parts of Syria, and millions of displaced residents rely on them for fuel to survive. But working inside these hellish facilities is dangerous, and it's wreaking havoc on the environment. We went to Al-Bab, Syria, to find out why these illegal oil refineries are here in the first place, and why they're a necessary evil for the people living in Syria.
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00:00 (tank rumbling)
00:03 These rustic oil refineries in Syria
00:06 are a ticking time bomb.
00:07 The slightest mistake and they can blow up,
00:12 killing workers.
00:13 (tank rumbling)
00:15 Thousands of these facilities popped up in Northern Syria
00:27 after civil war broke out in 2011.
00:30 Now, millions of displaced people rely on them
00:36 for fuel to run their cars, businesses, and homes,
00:40 including Ahmed Abdullah, who owns some of the refineries.
00:55 So what does it take to filter crude oil
00:58 at these informal refineries in Syria
01:00 where children do a lot of the dirty work?
01:03 And why is this black gold a blessing
01:08 and a curse for the people here?
01:10 Ahmed and his family live in a small village
01:16 called Tarhin near the city of Al-Bawd.
01:19 It's controlled by opposition forces.
01:25 And it became a safe haven for many refugees during the war.
01:29 About 400,000 displaced people live here today.
01:50 Satellite images of Tarhin from 2011 show orchards.
01:55 Several years later, the land is black and barren
01:59 and marked by refineries.
02:01 Ahmed owns three of the roughly 650 facilities
02:06 in this part of town.
02:08 And he and his siblings poured their life savings
02:11 into the business when they started in 2012.
02:14 (speaking in foreign language)
02:18 The crude oil is refined
02:32 in these 55-gallon metal drums or burners.
02:36 Each of these can cost up to $50,000.
02:41 (speaking in foreign language)
02:44 A coal-powered furnace heats the burners.
02:50 The crude oil evaporates and flows into pipes.
02:55 These are submerged in water basins
02:58 so that the vapors can condense
03:00 and turn into diesel, kerosene, or gasoline.
03:03 (speaking in foreign language)
03:08 (water bubbling)
03:11 The heaviest part of the oil settles
03:18 at the bottom of the drums.
03:19 It's highly flammable and needs to be removed
03:26 before the drum is used again for refining.
03:29 This is what Ahmed calls briquette,
03:33 and it's used for cooking and heating.
03:37 Sometimes it's teenagers who climb into the drums
03:40 to clean them because they can squeeze through.
03:43 Ahmed doesn't want them around these dangerous tanks.
03:49 But he says many war-torn families have no other choice.
03:55 (speaking in foreign language)
04:00 (dramatic music)
04:03 Even his own 16-year-old son helps clean the drums.
04:13 (speaking in foreign language)
04:19 (water bubbling)
04:30 (water splashing)
04:33 After a long morning, Ahmed takes a break with his workers.
04:39 Today, he's having tea with Mahmoud Abu Ibrahim,
04:52 who nearly died in 2018 when an oil drum exploded.
04:58 (speaking in foreign language)
05:01 His eyes were permanently damaged.
05:03 (speaking in foreign language)
05:07 Just like Ahmed, Mahmoud is also a refugee.
05:20 Before the war, he was an electrical engineer.
05:25 (speaking in foreign language)
05:28 He's exposed to plumes of smoke
05:38 that release toxic chemicals, slowly poisoning workers.
05:41 (speaking in foreign language)
05:48 The smoke also coats plants and trees,
05:54 killing them off.
05:56 And oil spills have contaminated the ground
06:00 and drinking water.
06:01 (speaking in foreign language)
06:06 These makeshift refineries started showing up
06:10 between 2011 and 2012,
06:13 when Syrians led a revolution
06:15 against President Bashar al-Assad.
06:17 At the time, Ahmed was a paralegal
06:22 in his hometown of Al-Safira,
06:24 which had become a battleground.
06:26 So in 2012, he fled with his family
06:31 and eventually settled in Tahrir.
06:33 (speaking in foreign language)
06:38 But the worst was yet to come.
06:47 In 2014, ISIS rose to power
06:52 and eventually took over the country's
06:54 official infrastructure,
06:56 says Wim Zwijnenberg,
06:57 a researcher who's been following the Syria war.
07:01 - And ISIS has made a lot of money
07:03 from selling its oil to smugglers.
07:05 So in order to prevent that,
07:06 the US-led coalition started bombing
07:09 some of these locations to target wellheads,
07:14 pumping stations, in order to prevent ISIS
07:17 from pumping up the oil.
07:19 - The Syrian Democratic Forces
07:20 and coalition troops defeated ISIS in 2019.
07:25 But over the last 12 years,
07:27 the war has claimed over 300,000 civilian lives.
07:31 Today, Syria is informally divided
07:35 into several regions.
07:36 Assad's forces hold most of it.
07:40 The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces
07:42 have the oil-rich northeast.
07:45 And Syrian opposition forces backed by Turkey
07:48 control other parts of the north,
07:50 including Al-Bab.
07:52 So tankers regularly deliver
07:54 tens of thousands of gallons of crude
07:56 from the Kurd-controlled areas to Al-Bab,
07:59 where locals distill it.
08:00 Thousands of people here work in the industry.
08:06 - So taking away a lot of yield and income
08:08 for families in this area from this industry
08:11 wouldn't be beneficial for any post-conflict
08:14 reconstruction or rehabilitation efforts.
08:18 - We've worked hard to keep the movement going
08:21 and to keep the people's strength low.
08:24 We'll try to reduce it even more
08:26 and to keep it going until it ceases.
08:28 Ahmed's home, just a mile away,
08:32 runs on the same fuel.
08:34 These generators that pump out well water
08:37 use diesel.
08:39 - Fuel, gas and gasoline are the nerves of life.
08:43 Without them, we can't move.
08:44 We can't move our cars,
08:45 our furnaces,
08:47 we can't move our vegetables,
08:48 we can't live without fuel.
08:51 We have no choice.
08:52 But the very thing that fuels life for Ahmed
08:58 and so many others
09:00 is destructive in more ways than one.
09:02 And that's where the white helmets come in.
09:07 They're a humanitarian group of first responders
09:11 from all over Syria.
09:13 Hassan Mohamed is one of about 3,000 volunteers.
09:17 They were especially active at the height of the war in 2014.
09:24 They've rushed to the site of at least 550 oil refinery explosions.
09:40 They've been working for over a year.
09:42 Hassan says sometimes they're a result of recklessness
09:50 in the refining process.
09:52 But other times,
09:54 the Syrian government has targeted these refineries.
09:57 The biggest threat is the bombing of the planes.
10:00 This is a surprise.
10:02 The problem is that we're not just one refinery.
10:04 We're a team of one person.
10:05 Despite the risks,
10:08 this is a lucrative business in an area with few other opportunities.
10:13 We used to have jobs abroad, but we're now displaced.
10:15 We've had to leave our jobs and go abroad.
10:18 We're not going to be able to go back.
10:20 We're not going to be able to go back.
10:22 We're not going to be able to go back.
10:24 We're not going to be able to go back.
10:25 We've had to leave our jobs and go abroad.
10:28 We're not going to be able to go back.
10:30 We had a worker who worked for two years as a medical graduate.
10:34 I'm going to work in a hospital
10:35 and get paid 2,000 pounds a day.
10:37 I'm not going to be able to go back.
10:39 Altogether, his three refineries produce
10:46 nearly 1,000 barrels of fuel a day.
10:49 We're in the north.
10:52 We don't have enough space to store fuel.
10:55 The area is always in need of fuel.
10:57 Civilian cars take the fuel to the gas stations
10:59 and sell it to the consumers.
11:01 Ahmed buys the crude for $70 a barrel
11:05 and sells the refined fuel for $100.
11:08 He makes enough to comfortably support his family.
11:16 But even staples like groceries are expensive in the war-torn country.
11:23 And about 60% of the population is battling food insecurity.
11:27 In his downtime, Ahmed and his sons tend to his Arabian horses.
11:53 He owns 12 of them.
11:55 His favorite one is called Shahab, which means "shooting star."
12:01 He frequently participates in horse racing competitions.
12:05 The hobby is a remnant of his old life
12:10 that he hopes to go back to one day.
12:14 People are tired, exhausted.
12:17 A word "exhausted" is enough.
12:20 I hope to go back to my home.
12:22 I want to go back to my country.
12:30 I want to be free.
12:38 I want to go back to my country.
12:44 I want to go back to my country.
12:48 I want to go back to my country.
12:52 I want to go back to my country.
12:55 (dramatic music)