Water crisis batters Sudan as temperatures soar
Published: 04:06 PM,Jun 16,2024 | EDITED : 08:06 PM,Jun 16,2024
People queue to refill donkey-drawn water tanks during a water crisis in Port Sudan. — AFP file photo
PORT SUDAN: War, climate change and man-made shortages have brought Sudan -- a nation already facing a litany of horrors -- to the shores of a water crisis.
In the blistering sun, as temperatures climb past 40 degrees Celsius, Issa's family -- along with 65,000 other residents of the Sortoni displacement camp -- suffer the weight of the war.
The country at large, despite its many water sources including the mighty Nile River, is no stranger to water scarcity.
Even before the war, a quarter of the population had to walk more than 50 minutes to fetch water, according to the United Nations.
Now, from the western deserts of Darfur, through the fertile Nile Valley and all the way to the Red Sea coast, a water crisis has hit 48 million war-weary Sudanese who the US ambassador to the United Nations on Friday said are already facing 'the largest humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet.'
Around 110 kilometres east of Sortoni, deadly clashes in North Darfur's capital of El Fasher, besieged by RSF, threaten water access for more than 800,000 civilians.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday said fighting in El Fasher had killed at least 226.
Just outside the city, fighting over the Golo water reservoir 'risks cutting off safe and adequate water for about 270,000 people', the UN children's agency UNICEF has warned.
Access to water and other scarce resources has long been a source of conflict in Sudan.
The UN Security Council on Thursday demanded that the siege of El Fasher end.
Sudan is hard-hit by climate change, and 'you see it most clearly in the increase in temperature and rainfall intensity,' the diplomat said.
This summer, the mercury is expected to continue rising until the rainy season hits in August, bringing with it torrential floods that kill dozens every year.
The capital Khartoum sits at the legendary meeting point of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers -- yet its people are parched.
The Soba water station, which supplies water to much of the capital, 'has been out of service since the war began,' said a volunteer from the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of grassroots groups coordinating wartime aid. — AFP
In the blistering sun, as temperatures climb past 40 degrees Celsius, Issa's family -- along with 65,000 other residents of the Sortoni displacement camp -- suffer the weight of the war.
The country at large, despite its many water sources including the mighty Nile River, is no stranger to water scarcity.
Even before the war, a quarter of the population had to walk more than 50 minutes to fetch water, according to the United Nations.
Now, from the western deserts of Darfur, through the fertile Nile Valley and all the way to the Red Sea coast, a water crisis has hit 48 million war-weary Sudanese who the US ambassador to the United Nations on Friday said are already facing 'the largest humanitarian crisis on the face of the planet.'
Around 110 kilometres east of Sortoni, deadly clashes in North Darfur's capital of El Fasher, besieged by RSF, threaten water access for more than 800,000 civilians.
Medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Friday said fighting in El Fasher had killed at least 226.
Just outside the city, fighting over the Golo water reservoir 'risks cutting off safe and adequate water for about 270,000 people', the UN children's agency UNICEF has warned.
Access to water and other scarce resources has long been a source of conflict in Sudan.
The UN Security Council on Thursday demanded that the siege of El Fasher end.
Sudan is hard-hit by climate change, and 'you see it most clearly in the increase in temperature and rainfall intensity,' the diplomat said.
This summer, the mercury is expected to continue rising until the rainy season hits in August, bringing with it torrential floods that kill dozens every year.
The capital Khartoum sits at the legendary meeting point of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers -- yet its people are parched.
The Soba water station, which supplies water to much of the capital, 'has been out of service since the war began,' said a volunteer from the local resistance committee, one of hundreds of grassroots groups coordinating wartime aid. — AFP