Alwi corridor’s water crisis

“I gave birth to two beautiful children but as they grow up, they look dirty and are unable to mix with other children. And with the water crisis, they do not bathe sometimes for two days,” says 28 year-old mother of two, Ms Scovia Afoyocan of Payila village in Alwi.

Ms Afoyocan’s is one of the many families suffering a water crisis that has hit parts of Nebbi district. Alwi corridor, which is one of the areas suffering from this crisis, has about 39,121 family households that are in dire need of clean water.
The Alwi corridor comprises eight sub counties: Akworo, Parombo, Panyango, Kucwiny, Wadelai, Nyaravur, Pakwach and Kucwiny.

The people have been continuously drinking from unsafe water sources, such as ponds, rivers and streams and during the dry season, women in the community have to walk long distances daily to fetch water leaving their domestic chores undone.
Afoyocan adds that many children are dying in the community as a result of diarrhoea and other water-borne diseases.

The testimonies are all the same, among different communities in Alwi in Jonam County in Nebbi district, an area baptised as the dry corridor of the district. Mr Jacob Okello, a resident in Payungu village says the people have been drinking from a river even though it has been contaminated by faecal matter from animals. “Women scoop water with mud and they do not boil it. My child was diagnosed with bilharzia due to the dirty water we drink,” he says.

Okello adds that the cattle that are grazed drink from the same water point where women fetch from and this makes the communities prone to water-borne diseases. The crisis has led to fierce competition over water resources and that has prompted fears that it might breed violence. The crisis is blamed on mismanagement of existing water resources, population growth and changing weather patterns. But apart from these problems, the lack of water is also causing strife in families.

The difficulty in accessing water in the communities has made young girls abscond from school and women leave their daily chores in order to spend more time looking for water, however. People in the communities are predominately farmers and any time lost in search of water by women is not tolerated by their husbands, who say they need their assistance on the farms.

“I do not think it is right for my wife to leave me at night and spend nights at water points. I would rather spend the night without bathing,” Mr David Ogentho, a husband to one of the women said, in Payila.

The District Water Officer, Mr Jimmy Biyomotho, said there was need to secure funds in order construct gravity flow schemes and to pump water from the Nile and valley dam. “It will be feasible to get viable projects but we need the funds so that we save the people from water crisis,” he said.

But a Shs35m survey project stalled briefly after the death of the brain behind it Mr Charles Orombi. Since his death, the feasibility study has now been completed but it is not clear as to when the communities will have sufficient water.

Water, it is often said, is life. In its absence, disease, strife and violence tend to occur. The people of this dry corridor face a grim future if nothing is done about the situation soon.