Drinking water scarce in Sudan’s Blue Nile, River Nile

A number of residential districts in Roseires locality in Blue Nile State are suffering from a severe shortage of clean drinking water. People in Shendi locality in northern Sudan are being forced to drink unfiltered water.

“The districts of El Tulouba West and East, Allah Kareem, and Mabrouka seem to be permanently cut off from the drinking water service – while the Roseires lake lies at a distance of just one kilometre,” an angry resident told Radio Dabanga from Roseires.

“We depend on donkey carts selling water collected directly from the lake after most of the water pumps broke down,” he explained. “The price of a barrel of water rose to SDG10 ($1.63).”

He added that “our ongoing attempts to convince the local authorities to connect the neighbourhoods to the electricity grid have also failed”.

River Nile

The population of Banga El Gubba in River Nile State’s Shendi locality suffer from a shortage of clean drinking water too after the water pipes to the town broke down.

“The area lies only half a kilometre from the Nile,” a listener told Radio Dabanga from Banga El Gubba. “The three one-kilometre pipes through which the water is pumped from the Nile to the water tanks in the town broke down.”

The source said that they repeatedly requested the locality’s authorities to repair the pipes, to no avail. “We were given tablets to purify the water collected directly from the Nile, but they do not work well. We have no choice but to drink foul, smelly water until someone finally answers our calls.”