Residents of Sheekh district in Togder region have appealed for access to clean water, saying they have been reduced to using muddy water for the past 20 years.
Water is brought to the district by tankers from Dubur village, 15 kilometres away.
Mohamed Gahayr, a local elder, told Radio Ergo water available in the area was not safe to drink. “A barrel of water costs $1.5 but it’s not clean. It’s muddy and full of dirt. It is not drinkable until it’s been stored for over 12 hours to separate the mud from the water,” he complained.
“I have lived here for over 20 years, and I have never had clean water. When it rains, it becomes worse and the water crisis gets worse as tankers ferrying water find it difficult to enter the town due to rains,” he said.
Mohamud Kahin, a businessman, told Radio Ergo that the drinking water in the area was harmful to human health. “Sometimes livestock carcasses are thrown into the wells where we fetch water for drinking,” he said.
The local administration had not yet succeeded in constructing a well in the town, although according to Kahin $750,000 had been raised towards the project.
However, when contacted by Radio Ergo, Abdi Jama Farah, manager of the area water agency, said they were aware of the problems affecting the roughly 7,000 residents and assured them they would take action very soon.
“We are already busy in the implementation of a project to construct and equip a well,” Abdi said.
