Water prices soar amid shortages in Sudan’s North Kordofan

El Obeid, the capital of North Kordofan, is witnessing unprecedented water shortages. A mass cleaning campaign was launched by North Kordofan Governor, Khaled Mustafa, on Friday.

“We are forced to buy commercially sold water from donkey carts,” several residents told Radio Dabanga. The price of a barrel of water from a donkey cart has risen to SDG 300.

The sources attributed the crisis to the North Kordofan water corporation workers' strike, launched more than a week ago. They urged the authorities to solve the problem “as soon as possible”.

In a public meeting on Friday, Mustafa accused unnamed parties of “attempting to disrupt the working wheel of the state”.

He said that the current strike is evidence of the actions of “parties who exploit and misuse the freedoms provided by the revolutionary government”.

The governor threatened to hold the striking staff of the Water Corporation accountable for the water crisis if they do not return to work immediately, and to hold all the strikers in the state’s localities accountable.

Public cleaning

A large number of people arrived to participate in a public cleaning campaign of El Obeid, launched by Mustafa on Friday. Cleaning tools were distributed to all neighbourhoods in the city and jobs were allocated. The “environmental sanitation” campaign will begin on Sunday.

The governor appealed to all residents of the city to pay attention to the cleanliness of the state, after announcing that the campaign will run on Friday each week.

* USD 1 = SDG 55.1375 at the time of posting, according to the daily middle US Dollar rate quoted by the CBoS. Effective foreign exchange rates however can vary widely on Sudan’s parallel market, where the greenback sold for SDG 258 on Thursday.

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