West Darfur: El Geneina power, water cuts enter third month

The ongoing electricity and water crisis in El Geneina in West Darfur has entered its third month without evidence of a long-term solution. Local business is suffering.

Residents of El Geneina complain to Radio Dabanga that the price of drinking water has risen sharply as water must be bought by the joz or by the tanker when lack of electricity shuts-down the pumps.

The authorities have developed a programme for the distribution of electricity, dividing the city into nine districts, which has caused harm to their interests, according to residents.

This leads to the non-operation of water pumps which has caused the cost of a barrel of drinking water to soar.

An employee told Radio Dabanga that the ongoing power cuts – sometimes for weeks on end – have caused great damage to the craftsmen, traders, and students in El Geneina

Kassala

In eastern Sudan, residents of EL Sug El Shaabi market district of Kassala submitted a memorandum to the minister of infrastructure and urban planning in protest against the lack of water in the district for nearly a year and a half.

The memorandum pointed out that the officials had repeatedly promised the residents of the district to solve the problem without keeping their promises. They explained that the price of a cart of water has amounted to SDG 70 ($1.50*).

The residents of the district called for the closure of all the laundry factories located near the district and monitoring the water connections by ‘honest staff’.

* All currency conversions based on the daily US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS)