Only the strong can get water

Yesterday at 5pm two women fought over water at a borehole. The incident took place in the Wuluturu area of Yei town, Central Equatoria.

Water has become a major problem in the area. Lack of water is even expected to intensify, especially during dry seasons from December until March. During such periods most water sources such as rivers and wells dry up only leaving big rivers running. ‘It is good that the two who fought are from the same tribe, otherwise it would have become a group conflict,’ one of the borehole caretakers said. Many fights of the kind happen all over the county, and South Sudan as a whole.

Waterhole in Yei

Many NGOs, church organisations, stakeholders as well as government initiatives have constructed a number of protected water points all over the County of Yei. But the area is still facing enormous challenges as far as lack of water is concerned. These challenges emanate from the drastic increase of population density of the area. This increase is arising from the fact that since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005 many Southern Sudanese are returning home from countries where they had been living as refugees, such as Uganda, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, Central African Republic and Ethiopia. The rising number of people in the area has left it in a great need, especially of social services, since the existing ones are few, to adequately serve the growing population.

Wuluturu, like many areas in the county has only two functioning boreholes. Approximately, one borehole serves about 2.000 households in the area. Inadequacy of water has resulted in people having to share water with their animals in the streams around.  But Government officials say that more services will be brought closer to the people to help tackle the problem.

Now only the strong can get water. If the weak have to get water too, they have to come last. However, where the queuing system is operating, it costs a borehole care-taker a lot of concentration to ensure that all works out right – that all the containers get filled with water, systematically in order – of which one would be put first on the queue.  If more boreholes get constructed in the communities, this may help mitigate the rampant exchange of blows and fighting at water points.