SUDAN: Water, water everywhere – but it's not fit to drink
Pastor Dale Morgan
*SUDAN: Water, water everywhere – but it's not fit to drink*
30 Apr 2008 14:30:46 GMT
Source: IRIN
MALAKAL, 30 April 2008 (IRIN) - Malakal, on the banks of the world's
longest river in Sudan's Upper Nile State, should have enough water to
quench thirst and clean itself; instead the town was grappling with
serious challenges as it marked the international week of sanitation in
March.
"Towns along the rivers of Upper Nile, like Malakal, are areas inhabited
by citizens who get water directly from the rivers," Peter Pal Riak, the
state's minister for physical infrastructure, said on 25 April. "That
water is a source of disease."
With the onset of the rainy season, aid workers worry that cholera could
become a significant danger.
The river water, which is mostly consumed untreated by many town
residents, is contaminated with clay, wood, vegetation, potential
pathogens and micro-organisms. Many people bathe in the river, adding to
the pollution.
Further contamination occurs during transportation, often in a metallic
or plastic container pulled by donkeys through Malakal's dusty streets,
and during storage or consumption with dirty utensils.
According to local residents, the town used to have a piped water supply
system but it collapsed during the years of war between the Southern
Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Sudan national army. The war
ended in 2005, but by then the pipes were blocked or had been looted.
Similarly, waste disposal and drainage systems collapsed – just as the
population increased. The situation is compounded by a serious shortage
of toilet facilities. As a result, say aid workers, Malakal, whose
population has doubled from 10,000 in the last few years as those
displaced by the war return home, has appalling sanitation.
River of waste
The town has virtually no public toilets and inadequate private
facilities. As a result, many residents relieve themselves in open
fields all over town - and rarely wash their hands.
"If you go into open places in the town, you can get discouraged," said
Santino Olwak, director of rural water supply and sanitation in Upper
Nile State's infrastructure ministry. "That is how Malakal is - and now
with the rains, all the human waste is washed into the river."
A survey by the NGO Relief International in 2007 found that 80 percent
of the residents had no access to latrines or any other toilet
facilities. "The problem is just as serious in many other parts of Upper
Nile State," Benjamin Majok, the organisation's community programme
officer, told IRIN in Malakal.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), quoting the findings of a 2007
household survey in Sudan, said only 7.5 percent of the population in
Upper Nile practised improved sanitation.
"The poor sanitation is associated with low levels of knowledge on good
hygiene, limited access to safe water and the flooding situation which
Malakal has witnessed," Swangin Bismarck, UNICEF Southern Sudan
communication officer, said.
Speaking at a workshop to discuss the problem on 25 April in Malakal,
Olwak said: "We need to give priority to hygiene promotion to change
people's sanitation and hygienic behaviour, practices and attitudes.
"Unfortunately, the civil war [decimated] the department of water supply
and sanitation to a level where it is virtually non-operational," he
added. "For example, we are planning to drill 30 boreholes, 15 school
latrines and 1,000 household latrines in the state, but we do not even
have a truck."
The war, according to a report of the 2007 work plan for the
infrastructure ministry, also created a shortage of technical staff,
making it difficult to conduct geophysical studies in some areas before
boreholes could be drilled. In western Upper Nile, 22 water points
constructed during colonial times were damaged.
Workshop participants, including NGO and government representatives,
said lack of water management committees in all but one of Upper Nile's
12 counties, inadequate government support, open defecation, lack of
awareness and lack of waste disposal systems were some of the major
factors responsible for poor sanitation and lack of clean water in Upper
Nile.
But where latrines have been provided a change had been noticed. A study
of behavioural change by the NGO Solidarités in El Luakat and El Mattar
suburbs of Malakal found that latrine use went up from 16 percent in
2007 to 26 percent with an increase in facilities from 5 to 35 percent.
This was after the organisation had built 85 family latrines for more
than 1,000 people, with a small water treatment plant. Dehu Carole,
Malakal base manager for Solidarités, told IRIN: "Our experience shows
that when latrines are [made available], people will use them."
Ongoing efforts
Sanitation week, from 17 to 20 March, was intended to scale up hygiene
and health information across Upper Nile and in Malakal town. School
children were taught songs on hygiene and some parts of the town were
cleaned, but aid workers say very little was achieved.
More urgently, the government and NGOs worry the wet season could mean
Malakal being hit by acute watery diarrhoea or at the worst, cholera.
"We are getting ready, in case of an outbreak during the rainy season
that has started," Carole said.
UNICEF, which has provided core support to the water and sanitation
sector in the state, has, with its partners, embarked on erecting seven
2,000-litre water purification points throughout the town.
It is also involved in hygiene and sanitation awareness, and encouraging
improved waste management. Slabs are also being provided to help
families erect pit latrines, along with construction of school and
health-centre latrines.
Pal said his ministry was focusing on drilling boreholes and repairing
other water points. "We considered the first two years after the CPA
[Comprehensive Peace Agreement] an emergency phase; now we are changing
to development programmes," he explained. "Soon we will drill 20
boreholes in eastern Upper Nile.
"Most of the population here is … in dire need of sanitation and clean
water," the minister added. "These people cannot realise the benefits
that peace brought, unless they receive these services."
Other NGOs were providing kits to some locals to dig latrines,
encouraging hand-washing and teaching improved sanitation and hygiene in
schools. Chlorination kits were also being procured in case of a
diarrhoea outbreak.
Another key challenge was how to use Malakal radio to create awareness
on key hygiene and sanitation messages in different local languages
including Dinka, Nuier and Shilluk; and how to ensure more government
support.
"The problem is to change attitudes; even some of our educated people
defecate in the open," one participant told IRIN. "And the government,
which should lead this process, is giving very little to the water and
sanitation sector despite this being the International Year of Sanitation."
Local residents say poverty is partly to blame. "Those who have money
can buy bottled water," said Jacob Gatluak, a "tuk tuk" taxi driver.
"But how many of us can afford a Sudanese pound [US$0.50] for a bottle
of water, especially those with a family or who have just returned from
a refugee camp?"