In June, hostilities between Moldova and Russia in a short but intense conflict inclujde a rocket-artillery attack on the hydroelectric turbines at the Dub?sari power station on the Nistru (or Dniester) River.
Hungary abrogates a 1977 treaty with Czechoslovakia concerning construction of the Gab??kovo?Nagymaros project based on environmental concerns. Slovakia continues construction unilaterally, completes the dam, and diverts the Danube into a canal inside the Slovakian republic. Massive public protest and movement of military to the border ensue; issue taken to the International Court of Justice.
The Serbian siege of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, includes a cutoff of all electrical power and the water feeding the city from the surrounding mountains. The lack of power cuts the two main pumping stations inside the city despite pledges from Serbian nationalist leaders to United Nations officials that they would not use their control of Sarajevo’s utilities as a weapon. Bosnian Serbs take control of water valves regulating flow from wells that provide more than 80 percent of water…
In August 1992, bombs are set off along a Zhang River distribution canal collapsing part of the canal and causing flooding and economic losses. Violence continues in the late 1990s with confrontations, mortar attacks, and bombings. Conflicts over excessive water withdrawals and subsequent water shortages from China’s Zhang River have been worsening for over three decades. (See also entries for 1970, 1976, 1991, and 1999.)
In Nigeria’s “Middle Belt,” dozens are killed in tensions between farmers and pastoralists over the use of farmland, grazing fields, and water sources.
Lethal concentrations of potassium cyanide are reported discovered in the water tanks of a Turkish Air Force compound in Istanbul. The Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) claims credit.
A group called the Boricua Popular Army (Macheteros) claimes responsibility for the bombing of a major aqueduct construction project in Puerto Rico, stating the attack is the initiation of an effort to defend Puerto Rico’s natural resources from the government. The explosion causes significant damage to the project.
Over the course of a few days, militant groups in the Abkhazia region of Georgia attack and damage numerous water supply structures, leaving at least twelve villages without water. In addition, one person who is thought to be responsible for the placement of an explosive device on a water tower is killed when the device detonates.
Contamination of water supplies/wells by Serbs disposing of bodies of Kosovar Albanians in local wells. Other reports of Yugoslav federal forces poisoning wells with carcasses and hazardous materials.
Water pumping plants and pipelines in the border town of Adi Kuala are destroyed during the civil war between Eritrea and Ethiopia.