As rivers run dry, the desperate search for water has led to a rise in domestic abuse, conflict and illness
All photos by Cyril Zannettacci/Agence Vu for Action Against Hunger
Continue reading...Category Archives: Access to water
‘The challenge for us now is drought, not war’: livelihoods of millions of Afghans at risk
After years caught in the crossfire between the Taliban and security forces, farmers in Kandahar face a new threat, as water sources dry up
The war in Afghanistan might be over but farmers in Kandahar’s Arghandab valley face a new enemy: drought.
It has hardly rained for two years, a drought so severe that some farmers are questioning how much longer they can live off the land.
Continue reading...After slavery, oystering offered a lifeline. Now sewage spills threaten to end it all
Black people are disproportionately suffering under the weight of a sewage crisis in Virginia, a symptom of decades of neglect by local governments
On a cold winter morning early this year, Mary Hill was helping her 101-year-old mother get ready for the day when she received a distressing email alert. Tens of millions of gallons of raw sewage were heading for her prized family oyster beds.
Yet Hill was not surprised that the wastewater pipe built in the 1940s had succumbed to corrosion. “Here we go again,” she thought grimly.
Continue reading...‘Nothing to eat’: Somalia hit by triple threat of climate crisis, Covid and conflict
Overlapping crises have pushed the fragile east African country to the ‘cusp of humanitarian catastrophe’, with one in four facing food insecurity
Such was the horror that erupted in her village earlier this year that Fadumo Ali Mohamed decided she had no choice but to leave. Through the Lower Shabelle region of Somalia, she walked for 30 kilometres, along with her nine children, eventually getting help to reach the capital by car.
Now in Mogadishu, she is one of more than 800,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in the capital living in cramped, informal settlements with limited access to food, water and healthcare. She doesn’t like to recall the violence she fled.
Continue reading...‘I didn’t eat for days’: hunger stalks Venezuelan refugees
Colombian health workers struggling to cope as malnutrition and dirty water ravage new arrivals in Maicao’s swelling shanty towns
A seemingly endless lake of cardboard and tin shacks surrounds the perimeter of a former airport runway in Colombia’s desert-like city of Maicao. Known locally as La Pista, the area is home to more than 2,000 families, and is one of 44 informal settlements to have emerged around the city in the past two years.
The old airport has become a landing strip for desperate migrants and bi-national indigenous Wayuu people fleeing the economic and political crisis in Venezuela, where the basic essentials of life are hard to come by.
Continue reading...Fears for Chilean indigenous leader’s safety after police shooting
Alberto Curamil, an award-winning environmental activist, was seriously injured during a protest against the burning of a Mapuche home
Former recipients of a prestigious environmental award, together with Amnesty International and the lawyer of indigenous land rights defender Alberto Curamil, have launched an appeal for Curamil’s safety after he was seriously injured in a shooting by police.
Curamil, an indigenous Mapuche leader who in 2019 won the Goldman Environmental Prize (GEP), also known as the “green Nobel”, was left with 18 riot shotgun pellets embedded in his body after police chased his truck and opened fire after a protest against an arson attack on a Mapuche home on contested land in southern Chile.
Continue reading...Water of death: how arsenic is poisoning rural communities in India
‘A crisis is brewing’, experts warn, with contaminated water exposing villagers to increased risk of cancer and affecting children’s brain development
Nine members of Pankaj Rai’s family have died from cancer over the past 20 years. But the 25-year-old farmer from Bihar only found out their deaths were likely a result of arsenic poisoning when his father got sick.
In 2017, Pankaj took his father, Ganesh Rai, to the Mahavir Cancer Institute & Research Centre in Patna. Ganesh had stage 4 kidney cancer. But Dr Arun Kumar, a scientist at the institute, identified the severe skin lesions on his body as signs of arsenic poisoning.
Continue reading...Hungary’s LGBT protests and Juneteenth Day: human rights this fortnight – in pictures
A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms from China to Colombia
Continue reading...UK to slash funding for overseas water and sanitation projects by 80%
Scale of aid cut emerges in leaked FCDO memo, prompting experts to describe it as ‘a national shame’
The UK is to slash funding for lifesaving water, sanitation and hygiene projects in developing nations by more than 80%, according to a leaked memo.
The cuts have been described as “savage”, “incredible” and “a national shame” by experts highlighting that sanitation and handwashing is a key line of defence during the coronavirus pandemic. The reduction to the bilateral aid budget was revealed as details emerged of cuts in the foreign aid budget.
Continue reading...Handwashing and hot tea: Eswatini celebrates roll out of solar-heated water
New stations at health clinics improve hygiene in locations where warm water seen as ‘an absolute luxury’, helping to tackle Covid
In Eswatini, the southern African country which lost a prime minister to Covid-19 in December and where most people have no access to hot water, handwashing – a key weapon in the fight against the pandemic – has been a problem.
No government health clinic in the kingdom, formerly known as Swaziland, had hot running water for patients. Nine out of 10 didn’t have hot water for operations and cleaning instruments.
Continue reading...‘We are drinking sewage water’: Zimbabwe shortages threaten thousands
As the search for water in Bulawayo becomes more desperate, diarrhoea outbreaks from dirty water are endangering children
It is 6am on a Saturday and residents of Sizinda, a poor suburb in Bulawayo, have begun their desperate hunt for water. The taps at home dried up three months ago.
Water has become a daily struggle in Zimbabwe’s second biggest city, largely the result of a severe drought last year which has dried up the reservoirs. The poor rains expected this year will bring more hardship.
Continue reading...Satellite images show rapid growth of glacial lakes worldwide
Number of glacial lakes rose by 53% in 1990-2018 to reveal impact of increased meltwater
Glacial lakes have grown rapidly around the world in recent decades, according to satellite images that reveal the impact of increased meltwater draining off retreating glaciers.
Scientists analysed more than quarter of a million satellite images to assess how lakes formed by melting glaciers have been affected by global heating and other processes.
Continue reading...‘Water is sacred’: 10 visual artists reflect on the human right to water
The UN declared access to water and sanitation a human right a decade ago, but 785 million people worldwide still have no water close to home
Ten photographs marking the 10th anniversary of access to water and sanitation being declared a human right by the UN have been commissioned from 10 visual artists by the charity WaterAid to show the impact of clean water on people’s lives.
Globally, 785 million people – one in 10 – still lack access to water close to home and 2 billion people – one in four – don’t have a toilet of their own.
Continue reading...Tensions mount as Ethiopia allows dam across Nile headwaters to fill
Egypt fears hydroelectric project will restrict limited waters on which its population depends
Ethiopia has allowed a controversial dam built across the headwaters of the Nile to fill with rain water, raising tensions with Egypt and Sudan.
The huge hydroelectric project on the Blue Nile, known as the Grand Renaissance dam, is at the centre of Ethiopia’s plan to become Africa’s biggest power exporter, but Egypt fears already limited Nile waters, on which its population of more than 100 million people depends, might be restricted.
Continue reading...‘It’ll cause a water war’: divisions run deep as filling of Nile dam nears
Despite Egypt’s fears of ‘hydro hegemony’ and concerns it will worsen water shortages in Sudan, Ethiopia’s controversial dam project is close to fruition
From his office in central Khartoum, Ahmed al-Mufti prepares every day for what he believes is the water war to come.
This conviction led Mufti, a prominent human rights lawyer and water expert, to quit the Sudanese delegation that is negotiating Nile water issues with Egypt and Ethiopia.
Continue reading...Poor water infrastructure is greater risk than coronavirus, says UN
On World Water Day, UN warns that more than half the global population lacking access to safely managed sanitation
Decades of chronic underfunding of water infrastructure is putting many countries at worse risk in the coronavirus crisis, with more than half the global population lacking access to safely managed sanitation, experts said as the UN marked World Water Day on Sunday.
Good hygiene – soap and water – are the first line of defence against coronavirus and a vast range of other diseases, yet three quarters of households in developing countries do not have access to somewhere to wash with soap and water, according to Tim Wainwright, chief executive of the charity WaterAid. A third of healthcare facilities in developing countries also lack access to clean water on site.
Continue reading...‘We have no options’: how water scarcity is changing south Iraq
Researchers find people are being forced from their homes because poor water supplies are leaving families unable to sustain themselves through agriculture
• Photographs by Tom Peyre-Costa for the Norwegian Refugee Council
Continue reading...Amazon people turn to water tanks after environmental disaster
Scheme provides clean water and helps foster trust between indigenous groups
Romelia Mendúa was handing out plantain drinks served in aluminium bowls. Guests were seated in a hammock and on the bare wooden floor. Beyond the window was the lush vegetation of Ecuador’s north-eastern Amazon.
Chocula, as the drink is called, is made by mashing plantains into water, and is a common refreshment in the Amazon. But the water in Mendúa’s chocula was no ordinary water. It came through a tap in her kitchen connected to two tanks outside collecting and filtering rainfall.
Continue reading...‘Not a sip of water in the house’: living with HIV in a drought – in pictures
Three years of water shortages in Eswatini have disproportionately affected the HIV-positive community. The founder of a local support group in Lubombo is empowering others to look after themselves
- All photographs by Nyani Quarmyne, WaterAid
Millions at risk after toxins found in Harare water supply, study finds
Unpublished report claims water from contaminated reservoir leaves 3 million in Zimbabwe’s capital at risk of disease
Water being pumped to millions of residents in Zimbabwe’s capital city came from reservoirs contaminated by dangerous toxins, according to a report seen by the Guardian.
A study conducted by South African company Nanotech Water Solutions concluded that the health of 3 million Harare residents may be endangered by the provision of water containing toxins that can cause liver and central nervous system diseases.
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