Fulgence Zamble
BOUAKE, Jun 10 2006 (IPS) – The tap ran dry at the home of Namizata Timite in this central Ivorian town two months ago. There is no supply of potable water to either drink or cook with.
So each day before daybreak, with buckets firmly balanced on their heads, Timite and her daughters walk almost a kilometre to collect water at a well near the town, which serves as the headquarters of Forces Nouvelles, a rebel group, which controls the northern half of this cocoa-producing country.
Cote d Ivoire split in two almost four years ago. The crisis erupted on Sept. 19, 2002 after a failed coup attempt. The insurgents had taken up arms to challenge alleged discriminations against northerners. Since that time, they have occupied the north.
Timite, who is the owner of a restaurant in a working-class neighborhood of Bouake, known as Dar-es-Salaam, uses well water to prepare meals for her customers.
When I get my water from the well, I let it sit awhile so the germs and the (tree and plant) leaves have a chance to settle. Then I filter it, and use it. It s the only way I can continue to run my restaurant, she told IPS. The taps and the water tanks have run dry, so I don t have any choice .
For almost two months now, water supply to rebel zones has been cut off. According to water company officials, people in the north have not been paying their bills since the conflict there broke out about four years ago.
The cumulative bill in former rebel zones comes to about seven billion CFA francs (around 14 million dollars). These bills were sent out after negotiations with Forces Nouvelles officials and we consider it unpaid revenue, said Marcel Zady Kessi, the head of the Ivorian water company.
We need this money to run our installations in various towns in the north and west of the country (which are under the control of Forces Nouvelles), he added.
The scarcity of potable water is already posing a health threat. A weekly report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), published in March, noted: Since February 26, 2006, cases of diarrhoea followed by vomiting have been reported, especially in the west of the country, due to drinking contaminated water.
In all, twelve cases have been recorded, three among women and five among children under five. No one has died from the incidence yet.
In 2004, just prior to a military operation when the Ivorian army attempted to take back the north, at the beginning of the Muslim fast of Ramadan, cities under rebel control experienced an electricity blackout and a two-week cut in their water supply.
The United Nations Children s Fund (UNICEF) quickly called upon authorities to immediately re-connect the water and electricity supplies to the north. Without them, people s health is extremely vulnerable and can seriously deteriorate in a short period of time, maybe in just a few days, said Rima Salah, the UNICEF regional director for western and central Africa.
Lack of access to potable water seriously increases the risk of contracting water-borne diseases such as cholera and other illnesses, which cause diarrhoea, she noted.
But analysts believe that interruption of the water supply may be a ploy by the government to exert pressure on Forces Nouvelles to disarm quickly and salvage the humanitarian crisis in the north, since they cannot reach an agreement. The rebels are also under pressure from the inhabitants under their control who have no potable water.
You have to first remove all their comforts, beginning with water, and get the rebels to disarm as quickly as possible, said Soir-Info, an Ivorian daily newspaper early this month.
The electricity and water distribution company in Cote d Ivoire, CIE-SODECI, belongs to the powerful French conglomerate, Bouygues, whose contract was supposed to end in Dec. 2005. But the government of President Laurent Gbagbo is dragging its feet over the renewal of the contract, preferring to hand the company over to a South African conglomerate, according to analysts in Abidjan, Cote d Ivoire s commercial hub.
The analysts believe that Paris is trying to take advantage of the rebellion in the north to pressure the Ivorian government to renew the contract.
Gerard Dago Lezou, a philosophy professor at the University of Cocody-Abidjan, believes it s wrong to politicise the debate. We re dealing with a private company which functioned as a humanitarian body for four years, providing water and electricity for free. Now, it wants its due. We might as well give into it, or do we want it to continue operating in the red? he asked.
To reduce the water crisis, local officials in northern towns are planning to equip their villages with boreholes. We asked for a study to be done to supply us with clean water, N Golo Coulibaly, the head of Korhogo town council in the north, told IPS..
As soon as possible, 215 boreholes will be drilled with the help of non-governmental organisations and the Islamic Development Bank, he added.
But the urban populations under Forces Nouvelles control say they are at the end of their rope and prefer to negotiate with the water company.
Sidiki Konate, the spokesman for Forces Nouvelles, told a local radio station that some of the population had their potable water reinstated early this month. The water-treatment system motor had been fixed, at the government s request. But there is still more to be done to ensure that the people of the north are well-stocked with water.
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