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Survival in arid eastern Chad depends on struggle for water
HADJER HADID, Chad, April 9, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – “I’ve already earmarked a customer for
this drum — I need to get a move on!”
Ali Ahmat,12, flicks his whip to persuade a hard-driven horse to press on with his
cart, laden with 200 litres (44 imperial gallons) of freshly-fetched water.
The young entrepreneur is one of the informal but indispensable links in a chain to
supply people in Ouaddai, eastern Chad, with water, the stuff of life.
Scorching temperatures, an open sky, a shortage of deep wells and lack of water
purification system make this a thirsty part of the world indeed.
“After the rainy season, water becomes scarce,” says Mahamat Adoum Doutoum, chief of
the Guerri region, where only two deep wells exist for 86,000 inhabitants. “So people
go to look for water in the wadi.”
Wadis — “riverbeds” in Arabic — are watercourses that run strong and fast during the
rains and are often dangerous to cross, but largely dry up for the rest of the year.
When there is no more rain, people dig wells in the wadis and install pumps to extract
groundwater.
Ali and dozens of other water carriers flock to the pumps to collect supplies they
plan to sell to people who have no access to the source, often in dusty settlements.
Each refill of his 200-litre drum costs Ali 100 CFA francs (0.15 euros / $0.17), but
he can sell the water for five times as much in town. “We do between seven or eight
return trips each day, roughly,” he says.
Towards the end of a hot Sunday, the blazing sun has set and Ali’s cart is heading
towards Hadjer Hadid.
The town harbours a refugee camp for people who fled conflict and mass killings in the
Darfur region of western Sudan, the far side of the border.
Pascal, a Sudanese refugee and father of five in his 50s, is also used to the return
trips between the town, the bed of the wadi and the muddy wells.
MORE/AU/08:40 hrs
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He first came to Chad about 15 years ago and says that he “suffered” to be able to buy
his own donkey.
The beast of burden was an investment that has paid off, however, enabling Pascal to
deliver water to the townsfolk over the past two years and bring a small sum home to
his family.
– Add bleach –
But he remains concerned about the quality of the water.
“To drink the water, you also have to add bleach,” Pascal says.
While water has become as rare as it is valuable, the kind to be found around wadis is
unsafe. Traditional wells dug into the earth at the wadis provide water that is often
the same colour as the soil.
“The water can be contaminated at various points, either at the source, which may be
unprotected, or during transport, using receptacles which are inappropriate, dirty or
uncovered, and during storage and distribution,” says Fabienne Mially, mission chief in
Chad for the French aid group Premiere Urgence Internationale (PUI).
The NGO supports 11 health centres in the Ouaddai region, where awareness sessions on
the importance of proper drinking water are regularly organised.
In Borota, a village several hours’ drive from Hadjer Hadid, the head of the local
health centre has no illusions. Of the six standpipes in the village, none is working
any more.
“They were installed by NGOs,” says the official, Koditog Bokassa, who says that wadi
water is the only available source of water locally.
He hands out sachets of bleach to dilute in untreated water.
But Bokassa lacks the means to satisfy everybody and PUI has become the sole supplier
of bleach in central parts.
The state used to deliver some, but has not done so for more than a year, he says. It
is quite common to see young people at the wadis drink directly from their cans.
– ‘Barely enough’ –
The town has holding basins and water towers designed to retain water during the rainy
season.
“But the holding basins are insufficient and the two water towers broke down several
years ago,” says local resident Hassan.
One trader has bought two barrels of 200 litres apiece, which he leaves in the
courtyard of his house. “It’s barely enough for the children, but it’s better than
nothing.”
The water deliverer Pascal does not have the money to buy a drum of such munificence.
For the seven members of his household, there are seven 20-litre cans on the stoop.
“I haul water every day, but I have the same problem as everyone else,” he said.
BSS/AFP/AU/08:50 hrs